LAS VEGAS, Dec. 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Omnicell, Inc. today introduced Omnicell 10.0, the latest release of its medication system software, which gives hospitals important new tools for improving the management of the medication-use process.
The announcement was made during a news conference held at the 2005 American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) Midyear Clinical Meeting.
Clinical benefits of the new release include allergy checking, customized dispensing alerts, automated monitoring of refrigerated drugs, improved medication removal for nurses, and simplified IV component dispensing. Additionally, technology enhancements include enhanced reporting and scheduling of all reports, dramatically reduced communication time between OmniRx(R) medication dispensing cabinets and the OmniCenter(R) server, and improved system awareness tools to increase system up-time.
“This is a major advancement in medication-use process automation management,” explained Brad Blackwell, Omnicell pharmacy product manager.
Allergy Alerts
When medications must be administered without prior review by a pharmacist, the system performs a safety check for allergies automatically. The Allergy Alerts feature notifies the clinician of a potential allergy to the medication being issued as an override or from stocked medication (i.e., non-profiled dispensing). A link is provided to Gold Standard Multimedia’s Clinical Pharmacology(C) drug information database that provides relevant clinical information to aid in the decision-making process.
Dispensing Alerts
Customers have the ability to develop specific questions and gather responses during issue, return, or waste of a medication. This tool provides the facility with specific information about medication use, facilitates instruction and education during the decentralized medication-use process, and further increases patient safety. The customer can create any number of dispensing alerts with the answers available as free text, pick the best answer, select multiple answers, or no response (informational only). Additionally, this feature allows the customer to create secondary dispensing alerts based on an answer(s) to the primary dispensing alert. The answers are available through reporting and can also be e-mailed or sent in real time through OmniLinkRx(TM), Omnicell’s physician order management system.
Omnicell FlexLock with TempCheck(TM)
By utilizing Omnicell FlexLock, a remote locking mechanism, with TempCheck, the manual recording of medication refrigerator temperatures and storage of those log sheets is a thing of the past. The system monitors temperature continuously, and through alarms and e-mail or paging alerts will notify the designee(s) that a refrigerator temperature is out of range. Now the facility will not only be able to restrict access to refrigerated medications, but also automate the temperature-tracking process through user- defined temperature parameters and alerts.
Due Meds
As clinicians face increased workloads, more efficient methods for issuing medications are needed. Due Meds provides a filtered list of “due or scheduled to be administered” medications, providing nursing efficiency in the dispense/issue process.
Single Additive IV Medication Order
Many manufacturers of intravenous products, especially IV piggybacks, offer systems in which a medication vial is attached directly to the IVPB bag and the vial and diluent may be stored separately in the Omnicell medication cabinet. A single order from the pharmacy information system may not require that the clinician dispense both vial and diluent, so this feature allows the customer to configure the IVPBs and have both the medication and diluent issued from a single medication order. With this feature, single additive IV medication orders are supported.
About Omnicell
Established in 1992, Omnicell is a leading provider of patient safety solutions preferred by nurses. Improving patient care by enhancing operational efficiency, Omnicell solutions are used throughout the healthcare facility -- in the pharmacy, nursing units, surgical services, cath lab, and all the way to the patient’s bedside. The company’s MedGuard(TM) line of solutions for the medication-use process includes systems for physician order management, automated pharmacy retrieval, medication packaging, medication dispensing, and nursing workflow automation with bar code medication administration. For the medical-surgical supply chain, Omnicell provides open bar code systems, cabinet-based supply management, integrated open and cabinet-based systems, and Web-based procurement. More than 1,600 healthcare facilities use Omnicell solutions to help reduce medication errors, operate more efficiently, and decrease costs -- ultimately contributing to improved clinical and financial outcomes. For more information, visit www.omnicell.com.
Omnicell, Inc.
CONTACT: Bruce Lewis of Lewis & Summers Public Relations, +1-707-964-3844,or bruce@prwebsite.com, for Omnicell, Inc.
Web site: http://www.omnicell.com/
