St. Luke's University Hospital
The Challenge
As longtime users of central pharmacy robotics, St. Luke's pharmacy leaders recognized the safety and operational benefits that automation systems can deliver. However, after the campus transitioned to a cartless medication distribution model, pharmacy leaders believed traditional robotic medication storage and retrieval systems were incompatible with filling for its automated dispensing cabinets, where up to 75 percent of patient medications are stored.
The Solution
Faced with these challenges, St. Luke's became an Omnicell development partner and instituted the new XR2 Automated Central Pharmacy System to automate filling operations for the 94 medication dispensing cabinets at Bethlehem. The XR2 system enables 100 percent barcode scanning to eliminate human error, automated cabinet fill and cart fill operations, use of manufacturer unit-dose barcodes to reduce packaging burden, and proactive management of inventory levels to reduce waste.
The Impact
The XR2 system automates storage and dispensing of more than 400 line items with 100% accuracy, enabling St. Luke's to redeploy pharmacists to new clinical programs. For the daily cabinet fill, the XR2 receives the replenishment order and begins picking medications on a per-cabinet, batched-medication basis — each batch sealed in individual clear bags and barcode labeled using XR2's Auto Packager system. The XR2 also performs a daily mini-cart fill of about 300 items in patient-specific sealed, barcoded packages, completing delivery to patient care areas in about 90 minutes.
While the robot is picking medications, a single pharmacy technician can oversee the system and is free to perform other tasks. An unintended benefit was the impact on scheduling: when the hospital instituted a quiet initiative to help patients sleep better, pharmacy was able to transfer cabinet filling for patient areas to other work shifts — achieving greater efficiency. "The automation freed up pharmacists' time for new clinical programs we didn't have before," said Donna Yeaw, Director of Pharmacy.
Visit Omnicell.com/XR2 to learn more today.