Omnicell Provides "Scheduled Meds" Capability for Nurses

New Release a Big Boost to Industry Quest to Improve Patient Safety

Omnicell, Inc. today introduced Omnicell 11.0, the latest release of its medication system software, which gives nurses a filtered list of a patient's medication orders that are due for administration.

"Scheduled Meds is a robust new feature of Omnicell's top-rated OmniRx® medication dispensing systems," explained Richard Caldwell, M.S., R.Ph., Omnicell senior product manager for medication systems. "This facility-configurable feature not only improves nursing workflow, saving time; it also enhances patient safety." The list of patient medication orders due for administration is based on frequency and lead/lag times (early/late windows), per hospital policy and pre-defined ranges of time. The Scheduled Meds feature works with cabinets that have patient medication profiling. In addition to providing the nurse with the list of due medications, any returned medication that is scheduled during that timeframe will reappear on the Scheduled Meds list for the nurse. The returned medication will remain on the due list through the pre-defined period of time.

The announcement of the release of Omnicell 11.0 was made during a news briefing held at the 41st ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting and Exhibition.

Enhanced Features
In addition to the new Scheduled Meds capability, Omnicell introduced a number of enhanced features for its OmniRx® systems that will benefit hospitals and improve patient safety:

- Omnicell offers an extensive and frequently updated library of ready-to-run reports through the OmniCenter® system application. A number of report enhancements are available with Omnicell 11.0, including multi-select and view all options for improved reporting efficiency.

- Omnicell's SafetyStock™ bar code confirmation feature can now read 16-character medication bar codes generated for McKesson's ROBOT-Rx®, without additional bar code association by the pharmacy.

- Omnicell's Equivalent Dose and Dose Dispensing features for medication orders are both supported when medication order restrictions such as dose equals "0" (zero) and dose text is enabled are present. Certain pharmacy information systems have restrictions, and Omnicell software has been modified to meet these restrictions. "This enhancement to existing functionality allows clinicians to return medications by dose, reducing the number of unreconciled dose transactions," explained Caldwell, a hospital pharmacist for 24 years before joining Omnicell. "Now, during the return process, the user has the ability to document the actual dose administered."

Customer-Driven Changes
In response to specific customer feedback, Omnicell modified its software to improve user workflow efficiency, including the following changes:

- The end-user warning message at the cabinet that the issue amount exceeds the medication order dose amount can be disabled.

- Messages and business rules have been modified to allow the user to clearly identify the last time this medication or medication order was issued at the cabinet. If medication has been issued, the date and time will be displayed; if not, "Item has not been issued" will be displayed. When system-wide last issue is enabled and data are unable to be obtained for both medications and medication orders, users will be notified with a last issue message, displaying "Information not available."

- At the cabinet, the user now has the ability to view the current temperature within the FlexLock refrigerator at the logon screen, providing on-demand, real-time information to the nurse and other individuals. This supplements the FlexLock with TempCheckâ„¢ feature that is currently available.

- Users can be alerted at the time of expiration date entry if the date entered is in the past.

- To enhance the already-released Allergy Alerts feature, users can receive a warning if the medication selected has no allergy code when that order has not been reviewed by pharmacy.

By Omnicell