Florida Medical Center
The pharmacy department at Florida Medical Center (FMC) fills 900- 1000 medication orders a day. Has nearly 1,100 employees, including 17 FTE pharmacist, and 16 FTE technicians. Drug distribution is centralized using Omnicell for cart fill and first-dose dispensing, as well as unit-based cabinets for narcotic and floor stock medications and IV solutions.

At A Glance:

• Founded in 1973, FMC offers a broad range of medical and surgical services.
• Member of Tenet South Florida Health System.
• 459-bed acute care medical/surgical hospital.
  
• Located in West Broward County, FL.
  
• Medical staff of over 500 affiliated physicians and over 1,100 employees.
  

System Details:

• 10 Pharmacy Stations
  
• 20 Nurses Stations
  
• Patient information is obtained from FMC’s STAR database.

Order entry occurred in the central pharmacy, and relied on traditional methods for communicating medication orders. Orders were received via fax, hand carried, or pneumatic tube which resulted in many duplicate orders in the central pharmacy. Orders where then manually entered into the system. This paper-based process made it ImageDirector Rx Order Manager difficult to prioritize orders and created workflow bottlenecks in the pharmacy. In many cases, urgent orders could sit for an extended period of time. It also caused nurses to place repeated follow-up calls to the pharmacy for status updates, when orders were delayed by misplaced paperwork or because further clarification was needed.

Critical Issues

• Paper-based process created inefficient pharmacy workflow and slow response times.
• Orders were misplaced or often duplicated.
• Poor communications between pharmacy and the nursing units.

To automate the order process, FMC chose ImageDirector Rx to enhance the speed and communication between the central pharmacy and the nursing unit. By combining image capture, workflow software and relational database technology, we were able to provide improved order tracking, order storage and order retrieval. Allowing for more effective communication among physicians, nurses and the pharmacy. ImageDirector Rx also provides a comprehensive medication order trail with higher accountability, and an automated process for collecting of quality assurance data.

Results - By the Numbers

• Nurses are experiencing a much faster turnaround for medications, with ImageDirector Rx the turnaround time to fill an order went from 1 hour to 30 minutes, providing FMC with a 50% reduction in processing hours per day.
• Medication Administration Records (MAR) had to be manually produced each night. at 10:00PM and reconciled each morning after. With ImageDirector Rx, the quality check is immediate and the process is much easier.
• FMC has virtually eliminated the number of medication order errors.
• FMC has experienced a financial savings in terms of money and time, by eliminating multi-part pre-printed physician order forms, reduction in filing space and storage costs.
• Filing paper orders, which previously took around 2 hours, has been eliminated by archiving all orders electronically. A needed filed document could take up to two days to locate and with ImageDirector Rx, it's instantly available.
• Improved nursing-pharmacy communications.