Pharmacy computer system

[DrugRX]

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I know no one would be interested in this question except me and maybe a couple of IT pharmacists. But I am asking you guys anyways hoping some people may fulfill my curiosity. What pharmacy system does your hospital use and what size is your hospital?

My hospital uses Siemens pharmacy and it is a community hospital with about 200 beds.

Another question for fellow IT pharmacist or DOP.......
Regarding 340B, how do I match NDCs that are no longer available? Is there any easier to handle NDC-matching other than building and maintaining some sort of NDC cross-reference table?

 

[WVUPharm2007]

We are a 220 bed facility and use Cerner for system wide information processing and we are transitioning from Cardinal's Pyxis to Cerner's RxStation. Honestly, Cerner is the best order-entry system I've ever seen. Albeit, I've only seen a dozen or so...and all of those were terrible.

 

[DrugRX]

We are a 220 bed facility and use Cerner for system wide information processing and we are transitioning from Cardinal's Pyxis to Cerner's RxStation. Honestly, Cerner is the best order-entry system I've ever seen. Albeit, I've only seen a dozen or so...and all of those were terrible.

What makes you think Cerner's order-entry system is the best system? Is it because you are comfortable using it or you believe there really is a benefit or advantage over other systems?

 

[WVUPharm2007]

Do you mean the RxStation or the order entry system? The order entry system is the best I've used because it's actually Windows based...every other ancient order entry system I've ever seen has been terrible. Like I said...I don't have much experience outside of my own limited experience. I haven't used the RxStation yet...but it can't be much worse than Pyxis. All of those moving part break ALL THE FREAKIN TIME.

 

[DrugRX]

Do you mean the RxStation or the order entry system? The order entry system is the best I've used because it's actually Windows based...every other ancient order entry system I've ever seen has been terrible. Like I said...I don't have much experience outside of my own limited experience. I haven't used the RxStation yet...but it can't be much worse than Pyxis. All of those moving part break ALL THE FREAKIN TIME.

Haha.... your hospital probably needs a good informatics pharmacist who knows how to fix and manage Pyxis...

I have done some research on major pharmacy order-entry systems, but cerner was not even in a radar. I better take a look at their website.

 

[WVUPharm2007]

Haha.... your hospital probably needs a good informatics pharmacist who knows how to fix and manage Pyxis...

I'd rather have a mechanical/electrical engineer. It's not IT problems...it's the damned things physically breaking...and waiting 4 hours for the regional technician to show up with a replacement proprietary motor for some carousel drawer.

 

[kismet]

I'm at a pretty small hospital.. <50 beds. We have been using a ridiculously old program called Performance for order entry (the parent company is something like Lifecare or Lifetouch or Life-something based out of Florida) with Pyxis for work-flow (Connect) and distribution (Medstations/Anesthesia). We're in the process of upgrading to Mediware WORx for order entry which is light-years better than Performance but still needs some work. Not all the windows resize properly.. the drop down fields are buggy.. they told me I shouldn't have to use the mouse but the 'enter' key never does what you expect it to do.. but gosh the allergy/interaction/dose checking is real nice 'cause we've never had that with Performance. In the future, we're supposed to be going to barcoding and electronic MARs, and I believe Mediware has modules to help us pull that off.

I've been pretty happy with Pyxis, but I have no experience with any other ADCs, so I can't say I know the difference. For the most part, it either does what I want or I can manipulate it to do what I want. I'm on a first-name basis with our field technician; he calls in a timely manner and is usually out within an hour or two if something breaks.. also.. I've found the phone guys in Canada to be SUPREMELY helpful in figuring out how to hold things together until the tech can get out to fix things.. one even called me back after we'd hung up to give me some tips! (Like, when that carousel motor dies, you can unplug the IDE cable in the back and the rest of the Pyxis will still function.. that really saved my butt when one of the drawers in the ED failed..) Of course, it probably helps that we've only got 8 Medstations and 5 Anesthesia systems... so things probably don't break as often as a larger hospital with more stations would face.

 

[meister]

You are all jealous of the CVS computer system!