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Best Practices6 Tips for Managing Drug Shortages ............................................................................................................................................................... 2 Speeding Up Expired Medication Management .............................................................................................................................................. 3

Customer Spotlight How Are You Securing Narcotics in the OR?................................................................................................................................................... 4

Product UpdateNew Solutions for Healthcare Supply Chain Management.............................................................................................................................. 5

AnnouncementsOmnicell Acquires MTS ................................................................................................................................................................................... 6Your Omnicell System Is Best in KLAS ........................................................................................................................................................... 6

EventsConferences, Training Classes, and Webinars ............................................................................................................................................... 7

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Information and News for Omnicell Customers Fall 2012

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6 Tips for Managing Drug Shortages

Drug shortages are wreaking havoc on pharmacy and nursing workflow, costs, and most importantly, patient care. While we cannot directly alleviate shortages, Omnicell has a few tips to help our customers take advantage of existing functionality in their Omnicell automated dispensing system that can help lessen the impact of drug shortages.

Download our handout for more details.

1. Restock Management To prevent your system from automatically initiating cabinet restock orders based on par levels for shortage items, create a “Drug Shortage” route, or reorder source, within the OmniCenter® server. Then change shortage items to this source until they are available again.

2. Omni Inventory Report Use the Omni Inventory Report (available via the OmniCenter server) to find inventory in cabinets where the shortage item has lower demand. Inventory can then be redistributed to the appropriate areas.

3. Notification of a Shortage The Omnicell dispensing cabinets can be set up to notify users at login of any shortages. The message is displayed facility-wide.

4. Equivalent Dosing This feature can be used to make it easier for nurses to find alternative doses of medications when a particular strength is unavailable. Upon attempting to issue the medication that is out of stock, the nurse will be prompted to see other doses that are available to fulfill the medication order. Note: When using the Equivalent Dosing feature, consider the impact of substitutions on the patient’s electronic medication administration record.

5. Dispensing Alerts If a shortage causes you to stock an alternate strength and/or volume of a medication, Dispensing Alerts can be used to notify nurses that the product being issued may be different than usual.

6. OmniDispenser® Unit-Dose Dispensing Module During a shortage, medications may be substituted

frequently, and different brands may use varying package sizes and types. If your system includes the OmniDispenser module, make sure the correct canister is being used to accommodate the medication package.

A sizing chart for OmniDispenser is available to assist you. If your pharmacy does not already have this chart, contact your Omnicell service representative to obtain one.

Solutions in Pandora Analytics Customers who own Pandora® analytics software have further ways to optimize inventory related to drug shortage items.

Med Usage Report: This allows you to select medications, areas, and date range (at least a quarter is recommended) in order to better manage shortage items and substitutions.

Par Optimization Report: This report can help you decide how much inventory to centralize versus keep on the floor. Run it for select medications to receive detailed analysis of usage, suggested par levels, and even the dollar value of those changes. If you have the Pandora Remote Par Optimization (RPO) module and OmniRx cabinets, you can even push the new par changes directly from Pandora.

Stagnant Meds Report: Run this report to quickly identify opportunities to destock low-use items in order to make room for substitutions. It provides usage over a period, specifying the last loaded and last emptied dates to identify exact medication locations, down to the bin ID.

Please contact us if you have additional tips we can share with others!

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Best PracticesTips and techniques to help you work smarter.

Newsletter – Fall 2012

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Best PracticesTips and techniques to help you work smarter.

Speeding Up Expired Medication Management

New Expire/Recall Items FeatureIf your Omnicell® automated dispensing system has software version 15.0 or greater (current software is 16.0), you now have a more efficient, convenient way to remove expired or recalled medications from the Omnicell cabinet.

Previous Workflow Previously, a pharmacy technician received a printed a report listing medications to expire by a certain date. At each cabinet, the technician would select the Expiration function on the cabinet display, enter each item listed on the report, and follow the Omnicell guiding lights to determine where the item was located in the cabinet in order to remove it.

New Workflow Now, there is no need to run a report first. Pharmacy techs can simply come up to the cabinet, select the Expire/Recall Items function, and enter the expiration date they wish to identify. The expired items automatically appear on the display (so they don’t need to be entered manually), and the Omnicell guiding lights direct the user to the specific area in the cabinet where the item is located.

Note that the technician must still check to ensure that the correct item is being removed from the bin.

Improved Process Reduces Pharmacy Tasks With this new functionality, pulling expired medications no longer needs to be a separate task. Pharmacy technicians can easily manage expired medications as part of the cabinet restocking process.

Additionally, if the pharmacy has Omnicell’s Controlled Substance Management (CSM) system a closed-loop tracking of the medication is provided back to the pharmacy. CSM supports expired medication handling by performing advanced queuing of narcotics that are expired at the cabinet. This reduces the amount of time it takes for narcotic reconciliation in the pharmacy.

For step-by-step instructions on using the Expire/Recall Items feature, refer to the Omnicell Color Touch Inventory Guide, which can be accessed on the Omnicell customer website.

Newsletter – Fall 2012

“Pharmacy techs can simply come up to the cabinet, select

the Expire/Recall Items function, and enter the expiration date

they wish to identify.”

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How Are You Securing Narcotics in the OR?

If you’re like many anesthesia providers, you may have to carry controlled substances around in fanny packs, bags, or boxes. And, you likely have to retrieve these items from various locations prior to each case.

With the recent news story about a drug-abusing medical technician spreading hepatitis C to patients at multiple hospitals, ensuring these items don’t get in the wrong hands is more concerning than ever.

Aside from the dangers of diversion, manual methods of transporting and storing anesthesia medications and supplies mean manual tracking of usage—a tedious process for busy clinicians.

These are issues that Mark Antoszyk, a CRNA and Head Nurse Anesthetist, grappled with prior to implementing Omnicell’s Anesthesia Workstation a few years ago. He loves the fact that all the items he needs are in one secure place. In this brief video, he shares other advantages of using dispensing automation in the OR.

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Customer SpotlightLearn how colleagues are solving issues in medication and supply management.

Newsletter – Fall 2012

Watch Video

“You don’t have to worry about dealing with a fanny pack or a box or a

bag in between cases trying to find some place to secure those narcotics. Your narcotics are always secured.”

— Mark Antoszyk, CRNA

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Newsletter – Fall 2012

Product UpdateFind out what’s new at Omnicell.

New Solutions for Healthcare Supply Chain Management

Research shows that supplies and inventory account for 30 to 40 percent of an average hospital’s budget.1 Omnicell offers a number of solutions that help our customers address the constant pressure to reduce costs related to medical supplies.

Later this year, Omnicell will unveil its expanded suite of products for supply chain management, which comprises the new Omnicell® Supply system for both open and closed cabinet systems, OptiFlex™ specialty systems for the operating room and cath lab, and Pandora® Financials analytics software.

These solutions can help you make more informed supply chain decisions and significantly reduce the amount of time spent on replenishing supplies.

Shared Database Omnicell Supply for open and closed systems is part of the G4 platform of medication and supply automation. That means healthcare facilities will be able to manage a single database for Omnicell medication, supply, and controlled substance management systems. This will simplify and centralize updates to patient information while minimizing system administration and impact on IT infrastructure.

Verbal Confirmation Capability This capability is part of the new Omnicell Supply system and provides:

• Verbal confirmation during cycle counts and restocks in order to streamline materials workflow

• Enhanced user security with audio login confirmation

• Audio alerts for expired products or latex warnings Listen to Example

In addition, the Omnicell Supply system will have an enhanced patient issue review screen that increases overall ease of use.

Note: This is a preview of new features that will be available after January 2013.

1. “Storing and Dispensing Hospital Supplies to Nursing Wards – The RFID-Enabled, Two-Bin System,” presented by Claudia Rosales, June 22, 2012 at the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science Healthcare Conference in Montreal. Article. accessed 9/21/12 from University of Cincinnati website: http://www.uc.edu/news/nr.aspx?id=13807.

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Omnicell Acquires MTS

Look to Omnicell as your partner to improve patient outcomes and reduce medication errors, across the broad continuum of care.

In May 2012, Omnicell acquired MTS Medication Technologies, Inc., a worldwide provider of medication adherence packaging systems and consumables, enabling Omnicell to integrate medication management in both acute and non-acute care settings throughout your healthcare system.

MTS is a leading supplier of blister card medication packages to help staff in skilled nursing facilities and other long-term care settings safely and efficiently administer prescribed medications. MTS is also a leader in multi-med adherence packages used by patients in the home. For example, the RxMap Multi-Med punch card organizes multiple oral solid medications by time of day and day of the week, giving patients an instant visual reinforcement of what to take and when.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) estimates that 11 percent of all hospital admissions are related to the issue of medication non-adherence.1 The MTS medication packaging solutions can be an integral component of a hospital’s efforts to effectively reduce readmissions and the financial penalties that will be associated with this issue.

Newsletter – Fall 2012

AnnouncementsBrief news items to keep you informed.

Watch Video

Learn more about MTS and how it may benefit your healthcare system in this video:

Your Omnicell System Is Best in KLAS

OmniRx system honored 7 years in a row KLAS has recognized the Omnicell OmniRx® automated dispensing system as the recipient of its 2012 “Best in KLAS” award for Automated Medication Dispensing Units. This is the seventh consecutive year OmniRx received the KLAS ranking as the leader in the automated dispensing system market segment. Learn more

RxMap Multi-Med Punch Card

1. John Michael O’Brien, PharmD, MPH, Senior Advisor, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, CMS Innovation Center, Million Hearts, Innovation, and Improving Medication Adherence, Healthcare Compliance Packaging Conference, March 26-27, 2012.

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Newsletter – Fall 2012

EventsUpcoming conferences, training classes, and more.

Events

ConferencesOmnicell participates in many conferences throughout the year. A few key meetings are listed below, and a full listing is provided here. We hope you can join us at an upcoming event!

ANCC National Magnet Conference 10/10/12 – 10/12/12Los Angeles, CA

Anesthesiology 2012 10/13/12 – 10/17/12Washington, DC

OR Manager Conference 10/24/12 – 10/26/12Las Vegas, NV

ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting 12/02/12 – 12/06/12Las Vegas, NV

We will be hosting the Omnicell User Conference “Transformation Through Technology” at the ASHP meeting. Registration details will be provided soon. Sunday, December 2, 20122:00 – 5:00 p.m. We hope to see you there!

Omnicell Training Our Education and Training Services team offers a variety of practical, hands-on customer courses on-site at our Mountain View, California headquarters. View our current calendar of scheduled training courses and registration information.

Courses offered include:

• Pharmacy System Administrator Training

• Advanced System Administrator Training

• Biomedical Service Training

• WorkflowRx System Administrator Training

• Supply System Administrator Training

• OptiFlex System Administrator Training

Webinars UF&Shands: Creating a Blue Ribbon Dispensing Model Omnicell recently hosted a webinar featuring insights from pharmacy leaders at Shands & UF Pharmacy Services.

View the Recorded Webinar