Health Region South/East in Norway

Health Region South/East chose Theriak Logistics to serve as the backbone of a unique logistic solution for a new, state-of-the-art hospital in Oslo. The hospital’s aim was to improve the logistic process and stock management for medication in addition to increasing patient safety.

The objective is to reduce capital intesive local stocks and serve the wards with a high tech central pharmacy that is able to handle the hospital’s needs efficiently.

Theriak Logistics was selected after a European tender in 2006. The system is being rolled out in 2009 and is currently live in around 25 wards of the hospital.

Among the Most Advanced Installations of its Kind

The installation at Nye Ahus hospital is one of the most technologically advanced in the world. It seeks to control all aspects of the medication process, both clinical and logistical needs.

Theriak Logistics is the backbone of the installation. It optimizes the workflow of the complete medication process by managing medication orders and ward stocks. Theriak Logistics integrates the systems involved in, and relying on, medication logistics, such as the prescription management systems, the stock management systems and the financial management system. It also communicates with the fully automated unit dose pharmacy that dispenses all prescriptions. The dispensed medication is then carried to the wards via a pneumatic tube system. Theriak Logistics manages the trace of medication throughout the process ensuring that all medication is accounted for at all times. A prescription can be ordered and delivered until it expires after only one moment of pharmacist review- Theriak Logistics takes care of the rest automatically.

A Solution for the Whole Region

Theriak Logistics is designed to be extremely scalable and robust, placing great emphasis on high performance and high volume in the system. This is of great importance to Health Region South/East as it is expected that the installation will eventually serve all hospitals in the region.  This year 3 hospitals are expected to join the installation, and currently other regions within Norway are also evaluating an implementation of Theriak Logistics.

Considerable Cost Savings and Increased Safety

Health Region South/East expects considerable cost efficiencies by adopting the new logistical solution.  Much less capital will be tied up in local stocks as the central pharmacy will dispense the medication for most prescriptions, and the ward stocks can be minimized due to the real time overview pharmacists have. The automated processes that handle delivering the medication are incredibly labour saving, saving time in paperwork as well as packing and delivering.

Loss of drugs will be greatly reduced as stock usage will be optimized by Theriak Logistics in several ways:

• The medication assortments stored at the wards can be reduced in size since the pharmacy has an up-to-the-minute overview of stock levels and can order what is needed with one click.
• A robust audit trail is created as Theriak Logistics traces all steps of the medication process, so medication can be accounted for at all times. Narcotic medications have additional tracing and reporting features.
• Theriak Logistics always optimises the ordering of medications for patient prescriptions, ensuring that shipment effort and extra packaging are kept to a minimum.

Patient safety is improved as well, in the following ways:

• Medication can be delivered faster to the bedside when it is needed urgently. With the full overview of medication availability both in the pharmacy and in all ward stocks, Theriak Logistics can direct prescriptions to be dispensed from the local stock, or order an urgent shipment quickly.
• To further ensure that medication arrives on time, special alerts can be sent to beepers to ensure that pharmacists are aware of urgent needs or low stock that will prevent fulfilling medication needs for patient prescriptions.