Pharmacy execution validated; nearly $2M in potential savings    

Situation:

A 653-bed academic teaching hospital, Baystate Medical Center (BMC) is its region’s only tertiary care referral center and Level 1 trauma center. It operates the only neonatal and pediatric intensive care units in Western Massachusetts and is a leading research center. The pharmacy manages growing ambulatory programs (especially oncology), supports a comprehensive employee benefit prescription service, and provides resources and services to two affiliated acute care sites and varied non-acute programs as well as core inpatient support for a major teaching hospital.

Solution:

Increasing demand for services prompted pharmacy leadership to request an external organization to conduct a comprehensive review of pharmacy operations and drug utilization to produce:

• Analysis and recommendations to ensure optimal human resources are in place to provide high quality pharmacy services,
• Plans to help implement program enhancements and supportive processes and information needed for success, and
• Recommendations to effect significant pharmaceutical savings.

Result:

Findings and recommendations include:

• Restructuring and redesign efforts have occurred to accommodate new services within existing resources. More than 3.5 FTEs are provided to affiliates and provide services to expanding programs such as disproportionate share hospital drug purchase administration.
• The department performs at or below the 25th percentile in the major indicators of productivity, efficiency and drug expense. All future service requests must be analyzed using a comprehensive business plan methodology.
• Volume-adjusted data illustrates that drug expense inflation is significantly below national data.
• $1.9 million in potential drug savings identified (more than 30 separate initiatives) with implementation levels of difficulty assigned. More than 80 percent of drug savings opportunities were found in complex or difficult-to-achieve categories.
• When comparing drug utilization to peer facilities, pharmacy performs as well or better in most categories.
• A realignment and centralization of department functions and services would improve efficiencies, communication and strategic focus system-wide.
• Implement an enhanced Pharmacy dashboard report to include metrics for service excellence, quality and clinical effectiveness, financial performance, patient safety, operations and customer satisfaction.
• Multiple advanced technology systems should be interfaced to avoid manpower allocated to redundant updates and edits.
• Members of executive team, quality and finance should actively engage with Pharmacy and Therapeutics (P&T) Committee to enhance the committees’ work and drive initiatives.
• Use of ClinicalAdvisor® data will allow the P&T Committee to explore advanced mechanisms for studying drug utilization patterns within APR-DRGs and to identify divergent physician practice patterns.
• Clinical pharmacists should be fully decentralized and perform more direct patient care via clinical services. Consider additional clinical specialty pharmacist positions to cover key areas such as Infectious Disease, Critical Care, Peri-Operative Services and Emergency Department.
• Extend safety culture to the individual at all levels across organization.

 

"It was great to have Premier’s consulting team come and validate what we are doing. If there were performance gaps, we wanted to know where they were so we could develop thoughtful business plans to close them. We believe we run a lean, engaged, progressive department despite involvement in many non-core pharmacy support services across the organization. Premier validated that through some like-peer comparisons. The importance of their work is not just the confirmation of performance and service levels but also their ability to communicate their findings to every level of the organization."

Gary J. Kerr, MBA, PharmD,
Director of Pharmacy Service

 

 

 

 

Copyright 2012 Premier Inc., 13034 Ballantyne Corporate Place, Charlotte, NC 28277. 877.777.1552Terms & Conditions