Arkansas: Medical Center Provides Telepharmacy for Disaster Relief, Reduces Errors

In an article in online magazine "Lifestyle" called White River Medical Center Uses Meta Pharmacy System to Support Distance Medication Dispensing, Holly Meyer of tells a tale of two medical centers in North Central Arkansas, one providing remote order entry to the other in the absence of an on-site pharmacist:

This remote link allows WRMC pharmacists to provide remote medication order entry and real time review of medication orders for appropriateness of doses, as well as screening for medication allergies and drug-drug interactions. Although 35 miles away, SCMC functions as a virtual nursing unit of WRMC, allowing nurses at SCMC immediate access to medications in their dispensing machines. Two goals are achieved with this arrangement - orders for every patient are reviewed and verified by a pharmacist and nurses have access to medications without using an antiquated medication cart fill each day.

"Implementation of this unique technology has had a significant impact on patient care through the reduction of medication errors, adverse drug reactions and drug-drug interactions," explained Jody Smotherman, PharmD, Co-director of Pharmacy Services at White River Medical Center. "It has also produced improvements in employee and nursing job satisfaction as well as improved drug charge capture. A major unexpected benefit was realized in February of 2008 when an F-3 tornado struck Mountain View, destroyed part of SCMC and forced the closing of the pharmacy area. Without our remote order entry and automated dispensing machines, there would have been no access to medications after the storm."

Another advantage of telepharmacy: disaster relief!