FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 10, 2010
Mercy
Saves Lives and $109 Million with Innovative Technology
By reducing
redundancy and switching gears, the Sisters of Mercy Health System – a
group of 26 hospitals in four states in middle America – has challenged
traditional thinking and found innovative ways to save $109 million in
healthcare costs and avoid more than 150,000 potential medication errors
that could have harmed patients.
While Mercy was
recently named the top healthcare supply chain operation in the world,
just second overall to global giant Johnson & Johnson, it is the desire
to improve patient care and safety that is driving Mercy’s efforts.
Katy
Alspaugh, an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) nurse at Mercy Health Center in
Oklahoma City, knows firsthand what it’s like to be one of the
“have-nots” in a world where technology is increasingly becoming a
medical worker’s BFF, best friend forever.
“In 2005, I began working as an ICU nurse in Lubbock, Texas, at a
hospital twice the size of Mercy. The only backup I had to make sure I
was giving the right meds to my patients was clicking through a
checklist in my head. That was it,” said 28-year-old Alspaugh. “I came
to Mercy a little over a year ago, and now I can’t imagine caring for
patients without having this technology to track medications.”
Mercy invested $35 million in 2003 in bar-code technology — just one
element of a massive overhaul in how Mercy provides healthcare — to
reduce potential medication errors. Only a quarter of hospitals in the
nation use this technology, and it’s paying off big time for Mercy in
improved patient safety.
“I
remember one day when I was getting ready to give one of my patients an
antibiotic from their medication drawer and when I scanned the med in,
the bar-code technology alerted me that it wasn’t my patient’s med,”
Alspaugh recalled. “In the transition from pharmacy to our ICU, it ended
up in the wrong place.”
In
a long and complicated journey, medications make their way from supplier
to patient, passing through a multitude of hands and steps. By putting
technology to work, along with checkpoints at every turn, today on
average every medication destined for a Mercy patient is tracked 10 to
20 separate times before it’s used.
“All medications continue to be electronically tracked throughout a
patient’s stay at nearly every Mercy facility,” said Vance Moore,
president of Resource Optimization & Innovation (ROi), Mercy’s supply
chain division. “There’s a rigorous safety process in place before a
medication ever reaches a patient. We want to do everything we can to
reduce medication errors but not delay delivery to the patient.”
What everyone in healthcare already knows, but no one readily wants to
admit, is that healthcare is different from any other industry because
at the end of the day, it’s your life, your loved one’s life or your
friend’s life at stake. And that’s where the cost of errors remains
high.
“We wish as nurses and medical professionals we were perfect, but we’re
human and it’s a sobering truth we live with every day,” Alspaugh said.
“So when there’s technology available that ensures my patients get the
right meds and the right dose at the right time, I’m going to choose the
hospital that helps me care best for my patient.”
With Mercy encountering more than 2.7 million patients in the past year,
eliminating redundancy in processes and systems has also meant nurses,
pharmacists and other medical workers have fewer distractions, allowing
them to do what they do best – care for patients.
At
the center of how Mercy has been able to overhaul the way patients
experience healthcare has been Mercy’s supply chain. Supported by ROi,
Mercy has developed a national reputation for keeping ahead of the curve
in patient safety and healthcare cost savings.
“We’ve been able to link innovation with
good medicine by connecting our supply chain to clinical practices,”
said Lynn Britton, president and CEO of the Sisters of Mercy Health
System. “As healthcare supply costs continue to rise, ROi allows Mercy to successfully reduce costs,
streamline processes and improve patient care.”
The Sisters of
Mercy Health System – the eighth largest Catholic healthcare system in
the U.S. – includes 26 hospitals and more than 1,300 physician practices
in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma.
###
Media Information:
Highlights of the
Mercy medication distribution process
As part of a system wide medication program known as Mercy Meds,
distribution of pharmaceuticals throughout Sisters of Mercy Health
System (Mercy), is centralized at a Consolidated Services Center,
located in Springfield, Mo. Shipments of medications are received in
bulk at the CSC and repackaged in unit dose, bar-coded form.
This allows for
nurses to use hand-held, bar coded technology at the patient bedside, to
ensure the accuracy of medication administration.
Video package
includes highlights of the medication distribution process, following an
individual medication throughout the entire daily automated process. The
package illustrates the automation that allows nursing staff quicker and
easier access to needed medications with build-in safety features that
decrease potential for medication errors.
|
Story
Source: |
Sisters of
Mercy Health System |
|
Date
Produced: |
2/3/2010 |
|
Website: |
www.mercy.net |
|
Other
Information: |
For HIGH
DEFINITION copy of this video please contact Cora Scott at
417-820-2426 or 417-830-7271 or cora.scott@mercy.net.
|
Supplemental
Materials:
B-Roll Shot List
Download
B-Roll WMV format
for viewing:
Download
News Release
Download
Fact Sheet
- ROi, Mercy’s
supply chain division
Download
Photo:
Mercy nurse Katy
Alspaugh uses a handheld scanner similar to those used in supermarkets
to make sure a medication’s bar code matches a patient’s wristband and
medical chart. The technology also warns if the patient or medication
has any food or drug interactions, as well as averts possible errors
caused by look-alike or sound-alike medications.
Download