DANVILLE, Ind., Oct. 19 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- In a move to continually improve patient safety, Hendricks Regional Health has installed state-of-the-art medication-use technology from Omnicell, Inc. (Nadsaq: OMCL), a leading provider of patient safety solutions preferred by nurses.
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/19991203/SFF009 )
Omnicell's OmniRx(R) medication dispensing cabinets with OmniDispenser single-dose dispensing modules and built-in bar coding to ensure patients get the right dose and right medication have been installed in 17 locations throughout the health system. The dispensing cabinets include "guiding light" technology, which directs users to the drawer where the medication is located, and connects them to an Internet database that checks for drug interactions and issues alerts for possible drug allergies.
OmniRx cabinets also provide nurses with quick and easy access to medications through Omnicell's Touch & Go(TM) biometric fingerprint identification scanner, which increases patient safety and user efficiency by quickly identifying the person accessing the dispensing unit. This positive identification step protects against theft of user identifications and passwords and helps ensure that only authorized users can access drugs from the cabinet.
"Our new systems are a good start toward improving the efficiency of our pharmacists and our nurses, while increasing the safety of our patients," explained Michael J. Melby, director of pharmacy at Hendricks Regional Health. "In the next few months, we will add patient profiling capabilities to prevent access to any drug not approved by a hospital pharmacist. That will be a major advancement in patient safety." Melby is responsible for leading the patient safety initiative that has resulted in the use of these new medication-use technologies.
Additional Benefits
To speed needed medications to patients when an OmniRx cabinet is out of a particular drug, nurses use OmniExplorer, a feature that allows the nurse to find and dispense the needed drug from any other cabinet in the hospital. This is possible because all of the dispensing units are tied to the Hendricks Regional Health pharmacy information system which tracks medication use, manages restocking and ensures patients are properly charged.
Omnicell technology was chosen as a result of a request for proposal process that looked at the latest patient safety-automation technologies from three major companies. Nurses personally tested all of the proposed equipment before ultimately choosing Omnicell.
About Hendricks Regional Health
Hendricks Regional Health, a non-profit health care organization opened in 1962, offers state-of-the-art inpatient and outpatient health care in four convenient locations all around you: Danville, Avon, Brownsburg and Plainfield. We are dedicated to providing the community with advanced health care solutions without compromising the "personal touch" our patients have come to expect.
Hendricks Regional Health is fully accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations and is licensed by the Indiana State Department of Health. In 2004, Hendricks Regional Health was the only hospital in Indiana to be named one of Solucient's 100 Top Hospitals(R): Performance Improvement Leaders for continuous process improvement. For more information, visit hendricksregional.org.
About Omnicell
Established in 1992, Omnicell is a leading provider of patient safety solutions preferred by nurses. Improving patient care by enhancing operational efficiency, Omnicell solutions are used throughout the healthcare facility -- in the pharmacy, nursing units, surgical services, cath lab, and all the way to the patient's bedside. The company's MedGuard(TM) line of solutions for the medication-use process includes systems for physician order management, automated pharmacy retrieval, medication packaging, medication dispensing, and nursing workflow automation with bar code medication administration. For the medical-surgical supply chain, Omnicell's OptiFlex(TM) product line provides open bar code systems, cabinet-based supply management, integrated open and cabinet-based systems, and Web-based procurement. More than 1,500 healthcare facilities use Omnicell solutions to help reduce medication errors, operate more efficiently, and decrease costs -- ultimately contributing to improved clinical and financial outcomes. For more information, visit http://www.omnicell.com/.
Photo: NewsCom: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/19991203/SFF009AP Archive: http://photoarchive.ap.org/PRN Photo Desk, photodesk@prnewswire.comOmnicell, Inc.CONTACT: Bruce Lewis of Lewis & Summers Public Relations,+1-707-964-3844, or bruce@prwebsite.com, for Omnicell, Inc.
Web site: http://www.hendricksregional.org/
Web site: http://www.omnicell.com/