System Increases Pharmacy Efficiency

Baylor University Hospital's central pharmacy lowered its prescription-filling time by 35% using remote physician order-scanning systems, according to the results of a study recently presented at the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy meeting. The study assessed the time needed to process orders, order complexity, number of drugs per order, order type, and interventions by the pharmacist to verify the order.

During the study, physician orders were faxed at each nursing station using Omnicell Inc's OmniLinkRX system. The images were sent electronically to the pharmacists'workstations for immediate confirmation. The system included a Stat queuing system to allow for faster turnaround time for time-sensitive prescription orders. The results of the study were based on 1091 prescription orders collected randomly. Of the orders, 530 were collected 1 month before installation of OmniLinkRX and 561 orders during the 6 months after the system was operational.