Billings Clinic
The Challenge
One of Billings Clinic's primary missions is to ensure that medications are provided to their patients safely and efficiently. To support the safety goal, the hospital placed a laptop for accessing the EHR next to the ADC so nurses could cross-reference the two systems. However, this manual and redundant process decreased nurse productivity.
Prior to the interoperability solution, nurses reviewing clinical information within the Cerner EHR who then needed to administer medications had to walk to the ADC, log on, validate the prescription, and remove the needed medications — without being able to readily access clinical information from the EHR at the same time. This lack of connectivity created extra steps and potential safety issues.
The Solution
When Billings staff heard Omnicell was looking for a hospital to test tighter software integration between the Omnicell Automated Dispensing System and Cerner EHR, they volunteered. The key advantage of achieving interoperability between the ADC and EHR systems is that nurses can remotely request medications they need while at the bedside using the EHR, and then have the medicine ready to pick up from the dispensing cabinet later.
Now, from within the Cerner EHR, the nurse can confirm medications to be administered, view any relevant clinical information (such as pain scale), and remotely issue the medications, which will be queued at the Omnicell cabinet — all without logging on to two different systems. The EHR serves as the single source of truth.
The Impact
Clinical staff at Billings described the new functionality as "revolutionary" and "awesome," and noted that it enables more patient time at the bedside. "The number one thing I hear from the nurses is the responsiveness that they can provide to the patient," said Barbara Diehl, RN, MSN, NEA-BC, Director of Nursing Quality, Practice and Magnet.
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