System receives award from Premier Inc.
Texas Health Resources received the 2024 Resilient Pharmacy Supply Chain Award from Premier Inc., a leading healthcare improvement company that recognizes exceptional leadership and success in this sector.
“We are pleased to be recognized for our continued efforts to enhance pharmacy operations as a core part of our services,” said Andrew Masica, M.D., M.S.C.I., chief medical officer. “Texas Health is committed to creating safe, reliable processes that help deliver the best outcomes.”
The award was formally presented to Texas Health at Premier’s annual Breakthroughs Conference & Exhibition. It recognizes processes implemented by Texas Health to streamline and strengthen pharmacy operations, said Randy Ball, system pharmacy officer.
For example, to better manage pharmacy supply chain challenges, the system pharmacy office created a centralized purchasing team to support hospitals.
This purchasing team coordinates biweekly drug shortage calls to help manage inventory. The team also created a pharmacy catalog in PeopleSoft to help standardize purchases and manage compliance with required purchase volumes.
Ball said the group also created and uses a system-level inventory to allow better management of shortage products.
“Our efforts to better manage new therapies and shortages centrally allow hospitals to focus on their patients,” Ball said. “This team approach also helped lower drug costs over the past 18 months.”
During COVID, the team used the system inventory program to manage monoclonal antibody therapy centrally, including maintaining appropriate levels in stock at infusion centers. This allowed hospital pharmacy teams to focus on patients. Other COVID therapeutics were managed by moving products among entities to meet patient needs.
“Texas Health is continually working to improve efficiency,” Ball said. “We learned from those experiences and have continued to improve.”
Processes implemented by pharmacy operations include:
- Using Slicer Dicer, a reporting tool, within Epic to improve timeliness and appropriateness of purchasing decisions.
- Working with the Texas Health pharmacy ITS team and nursing informatics team to update the electronic medical record, helping to manage standardization.
- Implementing a “Best Practice Alert” during the shortage of contrast to help drive appropriate use of the product for imaging. This BPA resulted in a 30% reduction in contrast use and helped the system meet patient needs during the shortage.
