One of the most challenging patient safety and customer service issues in Long Term Care is timely medication administration for after-hours admissions.\u00a0 In our case, Sentara Life Care operates seven nursing centers, three assisted living villages and two PACE sites across a large geography in southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina, all of which had been served from a centralized pharmacy in Virginia Beach. We are part of Sentara Healthcare, a not-for-profit system of 12 hospitals, integrated services and a health plan, headquartered in Norfolk.<\/p>\n
Under our former system, an after-hours admission would require an order to the central pharmacy. An on-call pharmacist would drive to the pharmacy, fill the order, call a Sentara courier and transport the order to the facility, which could take hours.\u00a0 Attempts to better coordinate care on the front end still meant that meds were rarely waiting when a new admission arrived. Waiting for pain medication when you enter rehab can seem like an eternity and can negatively affect a patient\u2019s assessment of their experience.<\/p>\n
We found a solution in NuScriptRX\u2122, a Nashville-based centralized pharmacy provider with a focus on long term care. They provide a computerized eMed-Stat\u2122 system containing up to 380 commonly prescribed medications on-site at each of our facilities, which can reduce the time between physician order and first-time medication administration to just 60 minutes.\u00a0 In addition, their replenishment cycle for ongoing prescriptions is seven days instead of the usual 28 days.\u00a0 With rapid changes in medications for LTC residents and rehab patients, this process has already begun reducing medication waste and costs.\u00a0 Bar coding and an on-board electronic medical record make med administration simpler, safer and more efficient for nursing staff who are able to spend more time at the bedside and less time managing medication records.<\/p>\n
We were so impressed with NuScriptRX that Sentara Healthcare decided to invest in the company.\u00a0 Sentara is now a 12% equity partner with NuScriptRX, with a seat on the board of directors. NuScriptRX currently serves LTC facilities in nine states, and we think Sentara Life Care\u2019s experience will lend credibility to the company\u2019s effort to grow its position in the LTC and ambulatory pharmacy space.<\/p>\n
With reimbursement a continuing issue, LTC providers are measuring margins in nickels. Healthcare companies are exploring partnerships with game-changing businesses that are not reliant on third-party reimbursement.\u00a0 We expect that Sentara\u2019s investment in NuScriptRX will improve our patient experience as well as the bottom line.<\/p>\n
Bruce Robertson is president of Sentara Life Care and 2014 chairperson of the National PACE Association.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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