MINNEAPOLIS, Nov. 15, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE -- LogicStream Health, a leading clinical process improvement and control software provider supporting hundreds of hospitals nationwide, today released new software that helps hospital pharmacy teams proactively identify and control drug shortages.
The Drug Shortage App™ from LogicStream Health quickly and proactively identifies the impact of the accelerating crisis of new medication shortages for hospitals and helps protect the safety of their patients.
According to industry groups, ongoing and worsening drug shortages nationwide not only compromise or delay medical procedures but can also result in medication errors and patient harm. In addition, the cost of shortages can drastically exceed the price of a specific drug and significantly impact an organization’s financial performance. For one 500-bed hospital in the Midwest, the additional cost of drug shortages attributed to purchasing higher priced substitutes is approximately $700,000 to $800,000 per year.
In 2017, industry data indicate there were 146 new drug shortages nationwide. This year, the number of new shortages totaled 139 as of September.
“To counter the impact of critical drug shortages, hospital pharmacists need proactive, accurate and easily accessible information to better control the supply of limited medications to ensure patients receive safe and proper care,” said Brita Hansen, MD, chief medical officer at LogicStream Health. “The Drug Shortage App from LogicStream Health quickly gives clinical leaders key insights into their facility’s medication inventory and ordering trends, allowing them to minimize the risk to patients, reduce drug costs and improve pharmacist productivity.”
According to Dr. Hansen, “It takes eight to ten hours of up-front work to evaluate each new drug shortage, and the typical organization is facing three to four new shortages each week. That equals about one full-time pharmacy position just to assess a new drug shortage. The Drug Shortage App cuts that time down to minutes, giving back to your clinical pharmacy team valuable time they can spend on other high-value clinical duties.”
Using a proprietary algorithm, The Drug Shortage App from LogicStream Health provides comprehensive insights into the utilization of drugs in short supply. This empowers pharmacy leaders with the ability to proactively identify the impact of drug shortages, assess possible risks and create action plans to mitigate any adverse effects.
“When faced with a shortage of life-saving drugs, ensuring the appropriate use of those medications is of the utmost importance. With no control over the supply chain, hospital pharmacists must nonetheless find ways to manage drug scarcity while maintaining care quality,” said Patrick Yoder, PharmD, LogicStream Health CEO and co-founder. “Our software is the new way to manage drug shortages and it allows pharmacists to monitor prescribing trends and availability in near-real-time, so they can quickly take appropriate corrective action to counter any shortages, thereby avoiding or lessening any adverse impacts on patient care and the bottom line.”
Demonstrations of The Drug Shortage App from LogicStream Health will be conducted at the ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting in Anaheim December 3 to 5, 2018. The company will be located at Booth #149 in the ASHP Exhibit Hall.
About LogicStream Health
LogicStream Health is trusted by a community of high-performing healthcare providers across the United States. The company’s clinical process control and improvement software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform stands alone in its ability to help customers gain instant insights to improve vital clinical processes and patient care. As a result, customers reduce cost and improve outcomes. The LogicStream Health SaaS platform is ‘must-have’ technology enabling clinical teams to quickly improve clinical processes in near-real-time and is designed for rapid implementation and easy adoption by end-user clinicians, informaticists, data analysts and executive teams. LogicStream Health software today is supporting hundreds of hospitals on a scalable and sustainable technology platform to standardize processes and deliver highly reliable healthcare. For more information, please visit www.LogicStreamHealth.com.