The BSA Pharmacy Department has welcomed the new spring season with a bit of a makeover. They proudly launched a new inventory management system that improved efficiency by more than 100%.
The Pyxis Pharmogistics™ pharmacy carousel is an advanced medication storage and retrieval system that, through automation, reduces labor and space requirements when compared to static shelving. This system provides BSA with a perpetual inventory, gives pharmacy technicians a specified workflow, increases pharmacy efficiency and in turn, gets medications to patients faster.
“Tasks that used to take 2 or 3 minutes now take less than 1 minute and other tasks that used to take an hour and a half now only take 30 minutes,” said BSA Pharmacy Director Travis Lawler. “This allows pharmacists to work on more clinical initiatives and allows technicians the opportunity to manage more of our distributive functions.”
Because of Pharmogistics, BSA Pharmacy staff is also able to do more clinical pharmacy services, including communicating with patients about the medication they are taking. As a result, it increases the face time nurses have with patients.
“We really wanted to find a way to help the BSA nursing staff more,” Lawler explained. “Pharmogistics not only allows nurses to spend more time with patients, but it lets our pharmacists spend time with them as well.”
The new inventory management system will integrate into a bigger project called Epic coming to BSA later this year. Epic will provide BSA’s caregivers with a single, stronger patient information system that will help streamline work.
“All of us in the Pharmacy Department are really excited for the changes happening at BSA and we’re ready to see what great things our new technology and Epic will bring,” Lawler said.