Not wanting to be another statistic, Mercy took matters into their own hands to ensure the safety of its patients and began researching technology solutions that would help reduce or eliminate human error.

"We reviewed the report and our internal information and determined that virtually everyone that enters a hospital is administered some pharmaceutical product," said John Black, vice president of Resource Optimization and Innovation, an Operating Division of Sisters of Mercy Health Systems. "After taking a hard look at our internal processes, we found that the bedside medication administration process needed to be reengineered in order to provide the highest degree of patient safety. This pain point was deemed the most effective target to solve with technology solutions."

In order to evoke change across the various departments at Mercy, representatives from a number of functional areas such as nursing, pharmacy, supply chain operations and IT, came together to discuss and develop a more effective way to track medications throughout the supply chain.

After meeting collectively it was determined that an organization-wide effort to reduce medication errors was needed so the "Mercy Meds" program was formed. This program began at the supply chain level as a clinical patient safety initiative designed to enable Mercy to distribute all of its medical and pharmaceutical supplies from a single Consolidated Services Center based.

Taking into consideration the technology needs for Mercy Meds, Mercy deployed Zebra’s Z4M and TLP3844Z printers in its main distribution facility to generate shelf, unit-dose medication and tote labels. Additionally, in all of its receiving docks, Mercy introduced new shipment tracking labels. Now when medications arrive at the service center, a bar coded tracking label is applied and monitored from the distribution center all the way to the hospital site and through to the patient bedside.

After the Zebra solution was chosen, Mercy recognized that additional steps needed to be taken to make the overall integration and installation process run as smoothly as possible. One of the core issues that needed to be addressed was the proper operational and clinical staff training relative to the new process design. This entailed redefining the way medication was prepared, delivered and administered. Nurses had to be trained to migrate from a paper-based medication administration record to the electronic medication administration record (E-MAR) and pharmacists had to get comfortable with playing a quality assurance role in reviewing packaged medications. While difficult at first, both nurses and pharmacists alike began to see the benefits and efficiency gains as a result of using this new system.

Furthermore, Mercy needed to observe regulatory compliance, and due to the fact that the repackaging operation was not being conducted inside the walls of a hospital, the FDA mandated that Mercy become an FDA registered location for pharmaceutical repackaging. In order to support the overall project, Mercy’s centralized warehouse constructed a class 100k clean room, which controlled the concentration of airborne particles, temperature, humidity and pressure, minimizing the emergence of particles inside the room, with automated repack technology and hardware.

Standardizing the pharmaceutical shipment process enabled Mercy’s pharmacists to redirect 30 to 50 percent of their time from administrative tasks to utilizing their expertise for patient care. Additionally, automating unit dose packaging in Mercy’s central warehouse saved valuable time, allowing the pharmacists to align closer with the physicians, resulting in a significant increase in clinical pharmacist interventions which on average is driving a supply cost reduction in excess of $300,000 per month.

Another benefit is the ability to automatically replenish inventory and reduce the amount of expired products. "We are able to manage inventory more strategically across the organization and keep products in locations where there is the greatest need," said Black. "In the case of a product recall, staff can quickly locate and pull the recalled products, helping to ensure patient safety."

Finally, and most importantly, Mercy Meds accomplished a core goal of the program, to ensure they are meeting the five patient rights of medication safety:

• Right Patient

• Right Drug

• Right Dose

• Right Route

• Right Time

Another testament to the success of the program, Mercy determined that over 176,000 potential errors are now averted each year due to this new system implementation, virtually eliminating patient harm during the bedside medication administration process for oral medications.

"We believe Mercy invested in life saving technology, arming our clinicians with the tools they need to deliver safe medication administration each and every time they deliver care," said Black.