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ASHP Presentation Shows Kit Check Benefits at Wheaton Franciscan – St. Joseph

For the third consecutive ASHP meeting the implementation of Kit Check was featured by a prominent healthcare system during poster presentations. While the 2013 ASHP Midyear meeting included a study by the University of Maryland Medical Center illustrating how Kit Check helped a large hospital decrease tray processing time by 75% and kit errors by 99.5%, the 2014 Midyear shone a light on Kit Check at a mid-sized facility.

Kit Check Benefits Mid-Size Hospitals Too

At the 2014 ASHP Midyear Conference in Anaheim, CA, Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare – St. Joseph Campus took the stage to discuss their automation of kit processing. The 346-bed hospital in Milwaukee historically managed pharmacy kits and code carts with a manual process. This time consuming and tedious process had been in place since the introduction of kits to the facility decades ago – until Kit Check was installed in mid-October.
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Results: Faster, Less Costly Pharmacy Kit Restocking

St. Joseph pharmacy staff members including Holly Mercado-Schoessow, Robert Schumacher, Sarah Seward and Christopher Dykstra conducted a comparison of the pre and post-implementation process efficiency for pharmacy kit restocking of their Code 4 Kits. The manual process followed State Board of Pharmacy guidelines and involved a pharmacy technician restocking each kit followed by a pharmacist verifying the kit accuracy before releasing it for provider use.
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The study results show that the RFID-based automation solution provided by Kit Check is 77% faster than the previous manual process. This speed delivers the tangible benefit of an 83% labor cost savings or $3.67 per pharmacy kit restocked.
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Both results fall within the range of expected benefits that are seen across the more than 100 hospitals using Kit Check. The expected range of pharmacy kit restocking efficiency improvement is 72-90% faster and the cost savings per kit processed is $3.17 – $10.39. In addition, the poster reports that St. Joseph’s could save up to $28,000 per quarter reducing, “code drawer expired medications.”

Built to Support Hospital Pharmacies Regardless of Size

We were delighted to see St. Joseph’s conclusions on time and cost savings when using Kit Check to process their kits. The study answers a resounding yes to the frequent question about whether small and medium sites benefit from pharmacy automation. From the university research hospitals and major city trauma centers to small and mid-sized hospitals, Kit Check has proven valuable in saving time and cost while improving kit accuracy. Whether you are restocking two kits a day or sixty, our users tell us that Kit Check is a friend to the pharmacy.

If you would like to learn more about our solutions, you can see an infographic, white paper and video here.