Telepharmacy company covers hospitals overnight in 10 states, 12% of nation's hospitals use an off-site pharmacy service

Maryland telepharmacy provider MedNovations got a write up in the Maryland online Gazette.net because of it's valuable remote pharmacy services for hospitals:

‘‘It’s fairly new,” said Doug Scheckelhoff, the director of Pharmacy Practice Sections for the 30,000-member trade group. In fall 2005, the most recent data available, 12.2 percent of the nation’s hospitals used an off-site pharmacy service, he said.

Keeys, 48, called privately held MedNovations a ‘‘multimillion-dollar company,” but, citing competitors, declined to provide specifics about the company’s finances.

With 28 employees at its Laurel headquarters and a six-employee staff in Westfield, Mass., MedNovations has contracted to provide remote pharmacy services to just under 30 medical institutions in 10 states, including Laurel Regional Hospital and four other hospitals in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, Keeys said.

‘‘I see this being a significant model for bridging the gap that’s going to be here for a long time,” he said of a national pharmacist shortage that, as baby boomers being to retire, he expects to only worsen.

Points:

• Telepharmacy can be implemented in hospitals to reduce medication errors that would occur overnight
• 12.2% of hospitals use an off-site pharmacy service, as of 2005, (so it's probably higher now)
• Telepharmacy can be provided from a central location to a number of different states
• More people needing medical care will elevate the need for remote pharmacy services
  

Director of Institute for Rural and Community Health is Proud of University Telepharmacy program

Billy Phillips, vice president and director of the F. Marie Hall Institute for Rural and Community Health at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, writes in to the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal:

Telepharmacy currently provides pharmacy services to two small rural communities whose residents would otherwise need to travel long distances to fill their pharmacy needs.

...

I am proud to say that the outstanding health improvement programs of the F. Marie Hall Institute for Rural and Community Health and the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center are robust and continue to make a positive difference.

Idaho to regulate hospital telepharmacy service, Texas to scrap regulation?

Idaho:
From the Idaho Statesman comes this tidbit:

The House and Welfare Committee will consider a bill allowing the regulation of institutional telepharmacy services. Upon adjournment of the House, Capitol Annex, Room 240.

Bill Details:
http://www.legislature.idaho.gov/legislation/2009/H0306.htm


Texas:
On the opposite end of the spectrum, there is a bill pending in the Texas House of Representatives, authored and introduced by Rep. Joe Heflin that will effectively end any progress made on the Telepharmacy-serving-rural-areas front, while skyrocketing the rate of medication errors.

If passed, the act would enable a licensed nurse to both supervise pharmacy technicians in their duties and dispense medication from hospital pharmacies without a pharmacist's check of any kind before the medication is administered to the patient, including an on-site OR a remote electronic check, which is more feasible and affordable than ever with the advent of telepharmacy methods. The bill would affect nearly 100 hospital pharmacies in the state.

Considering his only other item of note regarding public health was to sponsor another bill welcoming members of TORCH and the TRHA to the Capitol, one can hardly wonder who lobbied Heflin for the disastrous Texas House Bill 1924. If this downright scary video is any indication of how legislation passes in Texas, HB1924 should fly through without issue.

Bill Details:
http://www.legis.state.tx.us/BillLookup/Text.aspx?LegSess=81R&Bill=HB1924

Update (April 27, 2009):
The Texas Society of Health-System Pharmacists writes in their latest newsletter:

Meanwhile, HB 1924, which would allow nurses to practice pharmacy in rural hospitals passed second reading in the House of Representatives on Friday, April 24. The bill, developed by TORCH (Texas Organization of Rural and Community Hospitals), which represents small, rural facilities, attempts to place in law rules that the Board of Pharmacy has had on the books for nearly 30 years. It states that “a nurse . . may withdraw a drug or device from the (hospital) pharmacy in sufficient quantity to fill the order”(of a prescriber) when a pharmacist is not on duty. The bill would also place in law the (current regulatory) requirement that a consultant pharmacist review drug distribution not later than 7 days after it is withdrawn by a nurse. While the law would expire on January 1, 2012 (unless re-enacted), the bill establishes a precedent that places in law the right of someone not qualified to practice pharmacy acting in that capacity, makes more permanent a method of practice that is outdated, holds back any effort to provide remote or contemporary consultant pharmacy services from undertaking drug order review and essentially establishes a “second class” of care for patients in small and rural hospitals. It is estimated that the bill would exempt nearly 200 hospitals in Texas from having adequate pharmacy services. TSHP worked to oppose and delay the bill in the House Public Health and Calendars Committees, and plans to continue to talk with TORCH to find an acceptable compromise position or defeat the legislation.

Telepharmacies get another shot in rural Nebraska

Paul Hammel writes about a telepharmacy operation in Nebraska for the World-Herald:

Last year, the Nebraska Legislature passed a bill to allow remote dispensing of pharmaceuticals, to allow small-town hospitals that didn't have 24-hour pharmacy coverage to dispense prescription drugs.

But Cover, of the state pharmacists association, said provisions to allow telepharmacies were taken out of that law. A working group is now being formed to make another run at allowing telepharmacies, she said.

Louderback said he hopes it happens soon. He could add weekend hours at the Wausa pharmacy, and other small-town drugstores could avoid closing.