Daughters of Charity Health System partners to develop and test new ReadyScan™ repackaging service that increases medication safety
DUBLIN, Ohio, Dec. 4, 2006 — Cardinal Health, the leading provider of products and services supporting the health-care industry, today announced a unique, new service to improve patient safety by providing hospitals with pharmaceuticals in unit-of-use packages, complete with bar codes that help clinicians verify medications at the bedside.
A recent report from the Institute of Medicine estimates medication errors injure 1.5 million people annually and cost hospitals $3.5 billion to treat such errors. The use of bar code technology to confirm patient identity and medication orders has been shown to reduce medication errors by nearly 70 percent. One barrier to bedside medication verification is the availability of certain medications in a single unit, bar-coded package. Cardinal Health’s new service, ReadyScan™, fills a critical gap by providing unit-dose, bar-coded packaging for pharmaceuticals that aren’t available from the manufacturer in this format.
The first commercial implementation of ReadyScan™, was with Daughters of Charity Health System, a regional health-care system of six hospitals spanning the California coast from the San Francisco Bay Area to Los Angeles. The health system partnered with Cardinal Health to help design and test the new ReadyScan™ service.
“Because of our dedication to patient care and safety, we are adopting a policy for 100 percent medication verification at the bedside, which requires all medications to be packaged in a unit-dose, bar-coded format,” said Rich Mendribil, Pharm.D, Director of Pharmacy for Daughter’s of Charity Health System. “We partnered with Cardinal Health to help identify the market need and test a solution where our hospitals can receive a majority of our medication orders in a unit-dose, bar-coded package, which enables bedside verification and allows our hospital pharmacy staff to spend less time repackaging medicine and more time on patient care.”
While some medications are already available from manufacturers or third parties in unit-dose, bar-coded packaging, there remains a significant gap, which forces the burden of repackaging onto hospital pharmacies. Cardinal Health’s ReadyScan™ service is an extension of the company’s pharmaceutical supply chain services and will focus on oral solid medications that aren’t already available in a unit-dose, bar-coded package.
ReadyScan™ will be repackaged in a Cardinal Health facility that follows current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP) under Food and Drug Administration guidelines. In addition, Cardinal Health also offers the service as part of the normal ordering process used by their current hospital customers. This creates a more efficient approach, because hospitals will receive their medications in the same form in which they are administered to patients, without any changes in the ordering process or any extra work required by the hospital pharmacy staff. Cardinal Health customers order their pharmaceuticals through the normal Cardinal.com Ordering service, and if they participate in the ReadyScan™ program, the pharmaceuticals will arrive with their next delivery in a unit-dose, bar-coded package that is ready for verification and administration at the bedside.
“We developed ReadyScan™ to leverage Cardinal Health’s capabilities and resources to make it easier for hospitals to verify medications at the bedside,” said Mark Parrish, chief executive officer of the Healthcare Supply Chain Services sector of Cardinal Health. “ReadyScan™ is an extremely efficient method for hospitals to seamlessly order and receive unit-dose, bar-coded pharmaceuticals that aren’t already available in this type of packaging.”
ReadyScan™ is also fully integrated into the CardinalASSIST® service, an automated replenishment system for the Pyxis MedStation®. CardinalASSIST® automatically orders medications for the Pyxis MedStation® when quantities are running low. The ReadyScan™ service packages medications into a MedStation-friendly unit-dose, bar-coded format, and the full order is compiled into a container and labeled with the ID number of the Pyxis MedStation® that ordered the medication. When the container arrives at the hospital, the pharmacy can efficiently replenish the appropriate Pyxis MedStation®. In addition to the efficiency benefits, patient safety is also improved by driving cGMP quality packaging directly to the Pyxis MedStation®.
Cardinal Health plans a full release of ReadyScan™ by the end of January 2007 and will offer the service for 60 different pharmaceuticals. The company plans to grow its portfolio rapidly based on early indication of customer demand.
About Cardinal Health
Headquartered in Dublin, Ohio, Cardinal Health, Inc. (NYSE: CAH) is an $81 billion, global company serving the health-care industry with a broad portfolio of products and services. Through its diverse offerings, Cardinal Health delivers health-care solutions that help customers reduce their costs, improve safety and productivity, and deliver better care to patients. The company manufactures, packages and distributes pharmaceuticals and medical supplies, offers a range of clinical services and develops automation products that improve the management and delivery of supplies and medication for hospitals, physician offices and pharmacies. Ranked No. 19 on the Fortune 500, Cardinal Health employs more than 55,000 people on six continents. More information about the company may be found at
www.cardinalhealth.com.
Except for historical information, all other information in this news release consists of forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected, anticipated or implied. The most significant of these uncertainties are described in Cardinal Health's Form 10-K, Form 10-Q and Form 8-K reports (including all amendments to those reports) and exhibits to those reports, and include (but are not limited to) the following: competitive pressures in its various lines of business; the loss of one or more key customer or supplier relationships or changes to the terms of those relationships; changes in the distribution patterns or reimbursement rates for health-care products and/or services; the results, consequences, effects or timing of any inquiry or investigation by or settlement discussions with any regulatory authority or any legal and administrative proceedings, including shareholder litigation; difficulties in opening new facilities or fully utilizing existing capacity; the costs, difficulties and uncertainties related to the integration of acquired businesses; and general economic and market conditions. Except to the extent required by applicable law, Cardinal Health undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement.
