When patients begin receiving care at St. Luke's Same Day Surgery Center in April, they'll receive medications through a computerized pharmacy system that's been in use throughout St. Luke's Regional Medical Center for five years now - the Pyxis system.
Centralized in St. Luke's Pharmacy, the highly sophisticated system features individual secure cabinets stocked with regularly used prescription and over-the-counter medications that can only be opened through a series of security measures, explains Janet Harcum, director of Pharmacy services at St. Luke's. All cabinets are linked to the main Pyxis computer database in Pharmacy, where pharmacists enter physicians' orders for medications to be given to St. Luke's patients, as well as track usage and inventory.
"The Pyxis system offers us a number of advantages, in terms of patient safety and security, as well as in streamlining patient care," says Harcum. "For one, it offers maximum drug control and accountability since the system tracks who took out what medication, for which patient, and when.
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To add another layer of security to dispensing medications at St. Luke's, Harcum says, they recently added a fingerprint scan function to the 20 Pyxis units located in patient care areas.
"Pyxis also does the charting for the nurse automatically, recording information in the patient's chart regarding that medication, which gives the nurse more time to provide hands-on care to our patients."
Having the secured medicine cabinets on patient care areas has another benefit as well, since it can reduce the time it takes from when a physician orders a medication and a patient receives it, since as many as 300 commonly used medications are stocked in the cabinets.
"The multi-drawered Pyxis medication cabinet operates like an ATM machine," explains Harcum. "You enter a password into your account and scan your finger, which is read and converted to a digital code that must match your Pyxis profile before you are allowed to open the cabinet." Employees' individual Pyxis profiles are tailored to their job duties. For example, a pharmacy tech may only be permitted to refill medications and a nurse may be able to only remove specific medications and not restock them, and only be able to access the Pyxis cabinet in his or her assigned work area, not in other patient care areas.
Once logged on, nurses can access patient medication orders entered by physicians. As another safety measure, physician's orders are not available on Pyxis until they have been verified by a St. Luke's pharmacist. "If a pharmacist hasn't verified the order yet - doublechecked to see that the information entered is for a safe dose, there are no allergy or drug interaction concerns - the medication order won't show up on Pyxis," the head pharmacist says. "All orders get reviewed as another safety layer for our patients."
If the patient medication order appears on the Pyxis screen, Harcum says, the nurse is then able to open the multi-drawered dispensing cabinet. Safety features built into the system allow access only to the medication prescribed, in only the specific dosage and quantity prescribed as well. The nurse then takes the medication directly from the secured medicine cabinet to the patient's bedside.
The public is invited to come see a Pyxis system demonstration as part of the open house for St. Luke's Same Day Surgery Center, 12 noon-3 p.m. Sunday, March 30 at the new facility at 2730 Pierce St.
