We need your help!
Customers have expressed one of the biggest pain points in using Bluesight is the need to maintain and correctly map medications from different source systems. Our team is actively working on improving this experience and has some exciting features planned. Here is where we need your help: We are building a tool that will allow our internal teams to upload a copy of your facility’s medication formulary that can be extracted from your EMR and we are reaching out to collect these formulary files. Below are the steps for extracting this formulary data and some FAQs on the process.
What is a medication formulary?
Within a hospital, typically housed in the EMR system, there is a formulary that documents a mapping for each NDC across the different systems that a hospital uses. This formulary contains data about every NDC at the hospital, such as the form factor, package size, med name, and it defines the mapping of that NDC across the different systems. For example, the formulary will show that for NDC 12345-6789-10, the EMR medication identifier is EMR123, the ADC medication identifier is ADC123, the narc vault medication identifier is ADC456, and the wholesaler medication identifier is
W12345. This formulary is how hospitals keep track of a single NDC across many
systems.
How do I extract my hospital’s medication formulary?
For Epic or Cerner customers, BCS has built a process to intake the formulary file and automatically map the NDCs in the file to BCS medications. To extract this file, follow the steps below for your source system. If you have a different source system, we just need the columns/data requirements below.
Epic: Known as the “Epic ADC Medication List”
From the Epic Menu,
1. Admin
2. Rx Admin
3. Medication List Admin
4. Search for med list or “formulary” for the site (usually “___ Central Pharmacy”)
5. Go to the second tab labeled ADS tab and click Export to Excel at the bottom right of the screen
6. View the warning “Load the rest of the grid?”
-
- “The rest of the grid still needs to load before you can export this data.
Loading the rest of the data could take some time. Do you want to wait for
this data to load?” - Click Load Data and Continue
- “The rest of the grid still needs to load before you can export this data.
7. Receive a file directory to save the data to a network location (i.e. shared drive, NOT local)
- Name the file with the following format: “Hospital Name Epic Formulary
Extract YYYY-MM-DD”
8. Select the CSV file type (this is the default option)
9. Click Save
10. Go to the network drive to retrieve the file
Cerner: Known as the “PharmNet Inpatient Formulary Build”
Typically would require “DBA” and/or “DBC: Pharmnet” access/role in Cerner. The tool
is called phadbprebuildsuite.
1. Select Formulary under the Function field
2. Select the Facility the formulary file is being extracted for and click Move
3. Select Browse to save the data to a network location (i.e. shared drive, NOT
local)
-
- Name the file with the following format: “Hospital Name Epic Formulary
Extract YYYY-MM-DD”
- Name the file with the following format: “Hospital Name Epic Formulary
4. Select the CSV file type (this is the default option)
5. Click Save
6. Go to the network drive to retrieve the file
What does a formulary extract file look like?
A formulary file will look similar to the file below.
What data is required in the formulary file?
For Epic customers, the fields we need at a minimum are listed below.
- NDC
- Implied Unit
- Medication (contains the medication name and EMR medication identifier in brackets)
- ADS (contains the ADC medication identifier)
For Cerner customers, the fields we need at a minimum are listed below.
- NDC
- Volume
- Volume Unit
- Label Desc (contains the medication name)
- Charge Nbr (contains the EMR medication identifier)
- Pyxis (contains the ADC medication identifier)
How will you capture new NDCs that I purchase after providing you with this export?
Great question! We will need to figure that out and would love your help here, too. For Cerner customers, there is likely a script that can be run on a daily basis to provide us with the data requirements above so when we receive your ADC/EMR file with a dispense/admin event of this new NDC, we will already know how to map that that medication and it won’t require manual mapping.
For Epic and other EMR customers, let’s chat if you’ve found a way to pull this formulary file in some automated means.
Where are you in your development on removing the need from manually mapping?
We are in active development and we need your files to help make sure we develop the right solution. This is super important to make sure the formulary mapping works as we intend it to.
I have my formulary. Now what?
Send it to us! Either e-mail to your current Kit Check representative, either your Implementation Specialist or Solutions Consultant. You can also send it directly to our product team at product-bcs@kitcheck.com.
Thank you in advance for your help in improving your experience with Bluesight!