Pharmacy Connect: Integrating Anesthesia with Pharmacy

Plexus TG built Pharmacy Connect with the anesthesia workflow in mind: to document dispense and delivery quickly, without the order-entry process used in the rest of the hospital. Pharmacy Connect is flexible, fast, and works with existing pharmacy infrastructure to seamlessly meet documentation requirements without impeding anesthesia's work:

• Dispensed drugs are automatically added to the anesthesia record
• Clinician are automatically reminded to ensure all controlled substances are fully documented
• Pharmacy can get dispensing and administrating information via a charge interface
• Administrators can review detailed drug logs from dispense through administration and waste

Pharmacy Connect offers a unique solution to medication reconciliation requirements, bridging the gap between pharmacy and anesthesia. Using real time interface messages, Pharmacy Connect and Anesthesia Touch provide real time medication reconciliation at the point of administration.

Seamless Medication Reconciliation in the OR Workflow

When Anesthesia Touch and Pharmacy Connect are deployed together, clinicians don't need to take extra steps to keep their medication system and anesthesia record in sync:

1. Pharmacy Connect adds dispensed drugs to the anesthesia record's medication grid when they are dispensed
2. As clinicians document drugs, Anesthesia Touch tallies administrations against dispenses
3. Pharmacy Connect updates Anesthesia Touch with provider's waste and return information to reconcile dispenses
4. If any drug is unreconciled, Anesthesia Touch reminds clinicians to document administrations, returns, or wastes

By automatically tracking controlled substances between systems, Pharmacy Connect can help highlight a clerical error when it occurs. Real time feedback makes errors easier to address than an audit's feedback weeks or months later. Clinicians only see reminders when the system can't reconcile the drugs itself, allowing them to focus on patient care.

Pharmacy Connect in Practice

Pharmacy Connect eliminates unnecessary steps and redundant records. With it, hospitals can replace manual review processes with real-time validations that prompt the anesthesia provider to correct discrepancies as they complete each surgical case, rather than days later.

• Works with Existing Pharmacy Medication Systems: Pharmacy Connect works with industry standard interfaces (HL7) available from many medication systems. By using interface standards, it integrates seamlessly into the OR
• Audit-Proof Controlled Substance Records: Pharmacy Connect and Anesthesia Touch create comprehensive controlled substance logs by joining the medication cart inventory records with anesthesia's clinical patient records
• Detailed Drug Charge Interface: Anesthesia Touch provides the detailed information for charge-on-administration; combined with Pharmacy Connect it is possible to include package information to support drug waste and reimbursement programs, automating several types of perioperative drug charges

Pharmacy Connect is an integrated answer that brings together the dispensing with the delivery, the wasting with the reconciliation. Clinicians and Pharmacies deserve not just a system, but a solution, one that streamlines the daily workflow and creates comprehensive medication records.