Hospitals & Long Term Care Facilities
- Better Medication Management
- Better Palliative Care
- Better Remote Monitoring
- Better Control of Hospital Readmission
- Better Security & Tracking, Reduced Loss
- Reduced Insurance & Liability Cost
Improved Medication Management
With up to 30 per cent of all medical mishaps in a hospital attributed to drug or medication errors, such as a wrong dose or a dose given to the wrong patient, RxPense® can significantly reduce these errors, decrease liability and increase compliance.
In a UK based[6] study of seniors in residences, 41 different staff (35 nurses, 6 carers) were observed to administer medications to 823 residents. The findings were conclusive that the use of multidose medication package aids reduced medication errors by as much as 67%.
The CDC encourages the use of adherence aids. Chronically ill patients who take their medications save the health care system up to $7,800 annually per patient.
Additional Security is Good
The RxPense® has some specific safety features. The medications in the RxPense® are secured under lock and key. In the case of a caregiver, this protects the medications from tampering by the person under care and by others with access. Only the patient or a designated caregiver may access the medications and only when it is the correct time. The RxPense® has a battery backup system to ensure proper dispensing during a power outage. Finally, all activity is monitored 24×7 with the audit trail securely uploaded to our HIPAA and PIPEDA compliant servers. A complete audit trail, securely uploaded to the RxPense®, HIPAA-compliant Cloud is available 24×7 for your quality assurance and performance metrics.
Better Palliative Care
Hospice palliative care improves the quality of life for patients and their families facing problems associated with life-threatening illness.
Palliative care is a special kind of health care for individuals and families who are living with a life-limiting illness that is usually at an advanced stage. The goal of palliative care is to provide comfort and dignity for the person living with the illness as well as the best quality of life for both this person and his or her family.[1] While there are many hospitals providing palliative care, very few are offering the latest medications, like medical marijuana, simply because they do not know where to source, manage and administer the medication. Often time, patients are told to bring their own cannabis, but then how does the hospice control and monitor access and consumption?
Pain relief and stress relief are important objectives of palliative care. Patients have a strong desire to control their own relief without having to continually request personal and personnel attention. What could be better than a self-managed, automated, secure dispensing solution with detailed reporting and monitoring?
The RxPense improves palliative care by controlling, securing and dispensing as-needed medications such as opioids or medical cannabis products. Pain medications may be difficult to control and require strict dispensing guidelines. The RxPense can manage all of this, ensuring only authorized patients are allowed to dispense their preset doses.
Better Remote Monitoring
Our healthcare system is focused on treating patients under direct medical care. Those with chronic conditions such as COPD and Chronic Heart Failure do not usually self-manage well. The result is that they commonly fall back in to the hospital in need of urgent care. It is important that we better assist people with these chronic conditions to remain at home longer. Better self-management through technology and connected devices help patients stay home and keep them connected to their physicians who may remotely monitor and receive alerts as soon as an event occurs.
Increasingly, hospitals with high re-admission rates are being penalized, financially. Insurance companies and Payors are demanding better outcomes. The solution may be RxPense®! RxPense® can help patients remain at home or clinic, longer. Checkout the potential ROI on using a self-monitoring solution like RxPense®.
Telemedicine
According to a recent news release by WinterGreen Research, the “cost of tele-medicine for the US veterans administration is $1,630 per patient per annum”. By comparison, nursing home and facility care programs cost $100,000 per annum. The Veterans Hospital Administration implementation was a very positive experience resulting in a more widespread adoption of tele-medicine. “Telemedicine is an appropriate and cost-effective way of managing chronic care patients in both urban and rural settings”.
Hospital Readmissions
Hospital readmissions can have an impact on quality performance measures. As patients are readmitted, your credibility and revenue decreases due to these metrics and fines. For example, there are many disease states that typify higher readmission rates. Compounded with medication non-adherence, or strictly due to medication non-adherence, Medipense can help your patients remain adherent, longer.
The Cost of Hospital Readmission[2]
Nearly 18 percent of Medicare patients who had been hospitalized were readmitted within a month
The latest statistics for Medicare patients in the USA peg the cost of readmissions at $26 Billion. The interesting facts is that $17 Billion is preventable!
CMS will penalize Hospitals $280 Million for readmissions.
Reduced Insurance and Liability Cost
With a remote monitored solution, any anomaly is reported and all events are recorded. Adherence and health sensory data are all stored in a secure audit trail. With a tap of the finger or click of a mouse, relevant patient data is instantly available correlating medication consumption, dosage and vitals in an easy to understand, detailed report.
Cause and effect can now be understood. Emergency notifications can save lives. Patients can remain at home longer. Isn’t that a better outcome for everyone?
Medication Loss or Theft
High value/potency medications are disappearing from hospitals at an amazing rate. Opioids like morphine, hydromorphone, oxycodone, codeine, and fentanyl, over-prescribed and over distributed, as reported in recent media, seem to be impossible to control. Their pain relieving characteristics are unparalleled, but recent addictive properties, overdoses and black market activities have made these high value medications, even more valuable. Why are opioids disappearing? Lack of of security. Lack of control. Lack of penalty. Every time controlled drugs go missing from a pharmacy, hospital, transport company or other facility, details about the loss must be reported to Health Canada within 10 days. However, the reason they went missing does not need to be specified.In fact, according to Health Canada, 77% of medication losses that were properly reported, were listed as “unexplained”.
“A majority of the nearly nine million doses that were stolen or unaccounted for over those five years were highly addictive opioid painkillers, such as oxycodone, hydromorphone and codeine. In about one-third of the cases, there was no explanation for how they went missing.” according to a recent CBC report.[3]
“Pharmacies and pharmacy professionals are responsible for the safe and proper management—including storage, dispensing, documentation and inventory reconciliation—of all drugs under their control,” wrote Todd Leach, spokesman for the Ontario College of Pharmacists.[4]
Failure to maintain any of the standards of accreditation is considered to be an act of proprietary misconduct which can trigger a disciplinary action at the Ontario College of Pharmacists and lead to the revocation of a pharmacy licence.[4]
In spite of the massive losses we’ve experienced and in spite of the reporting requirements, there has not been a single case of an in-hospital based pharmacy being fined or penalized. So where is the incentive to tighten control? Is it the threat of possible penalties? or the stigma of being a major supplier of opioids ultimately to the black market? Within a hospital-based system, we have nurses, doctors, pharmacists, technicians and personal support workers.
In the USA, CNN recently reported: Opioid shortages leave US hospitals scrambling[5]. Could this be due to theft? In this case it may be related to the reduction in manufacturing attributed to government crackdowns on the use of opioids. The net result is that patients in hospitals still need opioids, but with a reduced supply, the opioids in hospitals need to better controlled and regulated.
If you want improved medication management, you need the RxPense!
High Tech Cure
The RxPense can offer an immediate solution to controlled dispensing of high value medications in a hospital setting. How? By ensuring that the right drug is administered to the right patient in the right dose by the right route at the right time – Also known as the 5 R’s.
The RxPense was developed by examining each of these “R’s” and engineered to also mitigate human factors. In following the path of medications from the time of dispensing by the pharmacist, up to and including consumption by the patient the RxPense automates reminding, dispensing, notifying and auditing. The RxPense is an invaluable addition to a staffed facility.
- Security: medications are locked up and only available to authorized personnel. Authentication biometrics, pin codes and passwords, image capture and audit trail recording ensure compliance and ease monitoring and identification.
- Control: Only meds authorized for a specific patient may be dispensed, and only at the specified times and intervals. Everything is logged.
- Penalty: All adverse events are immediately recorded and reported. Theft, improper dispensing and loss may be significantly reduced.
2- Medicare Fines 2,610 Hospitals In Third Round Of Readmission Penalties
3- https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/missing-drugs-pharmacies-part1-1.4708041
4- https://www.macleans.ca/society/health/unexplained-losses-of-opioids-on-the-rise-in-canadian-hospitals/
5- https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/19/health/hospital-opioid-shortage-partner/index.html
6- http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2017.03.008
Medication Adherence Solutions for
