Impact of Dispense Tracking Software on Inpatient Pharmacy Operations

Background: When medications dispensed from a hospital inpatient pharmacy aren’t able to be found at their intended destination (ie, a missing dose), this can result in delayed medication administration and rework to redispense the medication. Technology advancements in the medication use process have led to development of dose-tracking software that has the capability to track medication doses throughout the medication use cycle and document a medication’s location to its destination. Objective: The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of dose-tracking software on the number of inpatient pharmacy redispenses and nursing requests for missing medications. Secondary objectives included pharmacy staff satisfaction with dose-tracking software, its impact on workflow and patient safety, and compliance with dose-track scanning. Methods: The study design was a prospective, pre-post implementation to compare the requests for missing doses and associated dispenses of injectable medications during the set evaluation period. Dose-track scanning compliance data was collected and evaluated. A survey was also administered to staff to evaluate employee perception and satisfaction with usability and value of the software. Results: During the preimplementation period, 40 021 injectable doses were dispensed, and 9841 (24.6%) were documented as redispensed doses. After dose-tracking implementation, 42 975 total injectable doses were dispensed with 9839 (22.9%) being redispensed. The count of medication messages was 10 661 in the preperiod and 11 475 in the postperiod. The data were normalized using case mix index (CMI) and patient days to account for variation in severity of illness. Conclusion: Implementation of dose-tracking software showed a decrease in the percentage of redispensed injectable medications.