WALTHAM, MA - The United States Pharmacopeia (USP) recently revised General Chapters <795>, <797>, and <800> that dictate compliance standards for sterile and nonsterile pharmaceutical compounding, with enforcement starting November 1, 2023. But as this date draws near, only 31% of pharmacies are prepared for full compliance with the 2023 USP 797 reference standards. Taking action to ensure compliance amid this transition, Midwest Surgical Hospital has selected Wolters Kluwer Health’s Simplifi 797® technology, alongside the full Simplifi+® Pharmacy Compliance suite of solutions, to replace manual processes and support patient safety at its 25-bed ambulatory surgical center in Omaha, Nebraska.
Improving documentation efficiency to uplevel pharmacy teams
Prior to this shift, Midwest Surgical was utilizing paper-based records in its pharmacy for compounding documentation and medication inventory management across the facility. This placed an extreme administrative burden on pharmacists and led to inefficiency in medication compounding practices. By implementing the full suite of Simplifi+ Pharmacy Compliance solutions, including Simplifi 797, Simplifi+ MedTrays and Simplifi+ MedStorage, Midwest Surgical can proactively manage USP compliance, medication storage, and emergency cart medication inventory on one common platform.
“Pharmacists are an underutilized resource in many health systems and healthcare centers, and this is largely due to the inability to extract them from the daily documentation and minutiae in the pharmacy. With a lean pharmacy team, we’re always looking for ways to streamline our processes – and ultimately their workloads,” said Michael Labadie, PharmD, Director of Pharmacy at Midwest Surgical Hospital. “By bringing in automated solutions from Wolters Kluwer, we are able to minimize our manual documentation, limit medication waste, and allow our pharmacists to become more involved in patient care needs.”
“Healthcare facilities are being pushed to find new efficiencies in their current processes to balance increasing regulatory scrutiny and patient care responsibilities” - Karen Kobelski, Vice President and General Manager of Clinical Surveillance Compliance & Data Solutions, Wolters Kluwer Health
Midwest Surgical compounds many of its intraoperative medications on-site and, in light of the latest USP guidelines, was looking for a solution that would allow them to worry less about documentation requirements and focus on patient care. With Simplifi 797 in place, their pharmacy team now has a comprehensive view of their compounding compliance, including where they can take action to make improvements in real-time. The fully automated platform and expert guidance ensures the proper documentation is in place in case of a regulatory audit and allows for better tracking of wasted medication volumes, allowing their team to optimize compounding based on current usage levels.
“Healthcare facilities are being pushed to find new efficiencies in their current processes to balance increasing regulatory scrutiny and patient care responsibilities,” said Karen Kobelski, Vice President and General Manager of Clinical Surveillance Compliance & Data Solutions, Wolters Kluwer Health. “By using our Simplifi+ suite, Dr. Labadie and his team at Midwest Surgical are creating a more agile and efficient backbone for their pharmacy, allowing them to quickly onboard new staff, focus on patient programs, or navigate a regulatory inspection with ease.”
Beyond medication compounding, Simplifi+ MedTrays and Simplifi+ MedStorage enable the surgery center to more easily and efficiently manage medication stored throughout the facility. Simplifi+ MedTrays automates and standardizes emergency cart restocking to ensure accuracy and optimize the utilization of short-dated drugs. By automating inventory checklists, Simplifi+ MedStorage ensures medications stored across the facility are safe for patient use and achieve compliance standards so teams are inspection-ready.
Visit Wolters Kluwer Health’s website to learn more about the Simplifi+ Pharmacy Compliance suite.
