In major hospitals, pharmacy costs can run hundreds of millions of dollars annually. That’s one of the reasons effective medication inventory management is so critical. Technology that allows health systems to identify major pharmacy trends, including medication waste or operational inefficiencies, can significantly impact a hospital’s bottom line.
This is where IntelliGuard's RFID-enabled cloud analytics come into play. Designed specifically for health systems, IntelliGuard’s solutions provide end-to-end supply chain visibility that spans past, present, and future medication use. That includes trends in fulfillment, current periodic automatic replenishment levels, and expiration timelines. IntelliGuard’s data analytics platform even includes forward-looking predictive analytics to guide upcoming medication orders, helping pharmacists find the sweet spot between stockouts and over-ordering. Combined, these automated features help health systems optimize and strengthen their multi-million-dollar medication ecosystem.
Capturing better data with RFID technology
Many systems used to track medications within hospital systems rely on barcodes and manual recordkeeping. While these manual solutions are widely adopted, they don’t provide a clear and accurate view of medications as they move across the hospital system. Manual medication management systems can also negatively impact resourcing because they rely on human accuracy and speed, contributing to reduced efficiency, mismanaged inventory, medication waste, and even drug diversion.
A more efficient alternative to barcode systems exists in radio frequency identification (RFID)-based systems. Unlike traditional barcode technology, which requires a direct line-of-sight between a scanner and the barcode to transmit information, RFID technology uses radio waves, providing low-touch medication tracking. In addition to being low-touch, RFID tags can store more digital data than barcodes, such as national drug codes (NDCs), lot numbers, and expiration dates. Consequently, valuable medication data for thousands of medications can be transmitted without requiring an individual to scan medications manually. IntelliGuard’s RFID technology, for example, can scan thousands of medications in seconds with greater than 99% accuracy, providing a wealth of medication management data––and more time to act on that information.
Maximizing medication management data, without compromising safety or cost
IntelliGuard’s RFID systems can provide direct benefits to pharmacists, helping them manage local inventories, reduce restocking time, and simplify their workflows. In fact, RFID systems can save a pharmacist 35 hours per week compared to manual restocking. Even more benefits can be gained at a system level by analyzing medication management data with IntelliGuard’s data analytics platform.
Many hospitals are looking to lower costs, particularly with the looming threat of significant pharmacy spending increases (including a projection of a 2024 increase of 3.42%). While many hospitals may look to staffing cuts to reduce costs, cutting staff can exacerbate the expensive medication errors discussed above. Through its analysis of medication inventory and medication-dispensing data, IntelliGuard’s data analytics platform allows hospitals to track inventories over expanded periods and across multiple facilities. This gives senior management improved visibility into workflows and supply chains so that they can identify trends, maintain a watchful eye on drugs in short supply, and unearth anomalies or diversion events. Together, this visibility can facilitate more considerable cost savings and operational efficiencies.
Drug recalls are a relatively common and costly case study for IntelliGuard’s data analytics platform. Over the last ten years, there were more than 14,000 drug recalls, creating a significant burden for hospitals because of the extensive action that must be taken in response, including removing recalled medications from circulation, locating alternative therapies, adjusting future pharmacy orders, and providing information to patients that may have been given a recalled product. With IntelliGuard’s data analytics platform, it’s possible to track the inventory of a recalled medication across a hospital system and examine trends to anticipate the recall’s impact. This can save time and money while facilitating patient safety by revealing exactly where any remaining doses of the recalled medication are located and preventing patients from receiving them.
By transforming inventory data into strategic insights with IntelliGuard’s data analytics platform, hospital systems have the tools they need to achieve their cost-savings goals. Given the immense and rising cost of pharmaceuticals, the ROI of IntelliGuard’s data analytics platform is high, particularly when considering the optimization of inventory management, improved cash flow, and operational efficiencies it makes possible.
Seamless visibility and control with IntelliGuard
Combining RFID-based systems with robust data analytics platforms can help achieve much-needed visibility into the medication lifecycle. This provides the opportunity for ROI in the pharmacy to remain high, given the size of the budgets and the scope for waste when technology is not automated and big-picture trends cannot be viewed. Together, IntelliGuard solutions create an environment of safety via a powerful data ecosystem specific to each organization with a seamless way to manage hospital medications.
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Author Bio: Tom Koning is the President of IntelliGuard, a leader in RFID-based solutions that include equipment, software, and cloud-based data to create an extended environment for safer medication decisions. With over 35 years of experience in start-ups and Fortune 500 healthcare and medical device companies, his current role focuses on strengthening customer engagement and ensuring IntelliGuard continues to create high-value solutions to ensure patient safety.