Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center Improves Medication Safety With New Technologies

BATON ROUGE, La., July 25, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center has partnered with CareFusion to add new technologies within its 700+ bed hospital that will help improve medication safety by simplifying and standardizing the medication management process.

The CareFusion Pyxis^® ES platform is a combination of hardware and software that significantly reduces time for nursing and pharmacy to dispense and administer medications because of simpler, more efficient workflows. The system also eliminates the need for redundant maintenance of separate databases through direct synchronization with the pharmacy formulary, as well as hospital and patient identity management systems. The system enables Our Lady of the Lake managers to maintain consistent medication management practices and policies across its multiple facilities and clinics, which can help improve medication safety.

"Medication safety is a top priority for Our Lady of the Lake, and the Pyxis ES platform will help us ensure we have the highest level of safety across our hospital," said Michael Mohundro, director of pharmacy for Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center. "We evaluated several different technologies, but the Pyxis ES platform was the only solution that allowed us the centralized control with the individual unit flexibility that we needed."

Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center will be implementing the Pyxis^® Enterprise Server, enabling them to manage one dispensing system for the entire hospital, which includes Our Lady of the Lake Children's Hospital and a free-standing Emergency Room in Livingston Parish. This new technology allows the Medical Center to leverage the formulary resident in the Pharmacy Information System (PIS) and populate the data to the Pyxis Enterprise Server, permitting the PIS to serve as the single source for the formulary information. In addition, user management can be centralized with Active Directory enabling single sign-on with standard hospital credentials. Both of these capabilities can help hospitals reduce data errors and eliminate redundant data entry for nursing, pharmacy and billing.

Our Lady of the Lake will also implement the Pyxis MedStation^® ES system, CareFusion's most advanced automated medication dispensing system. The Pyxis MedStation ES system is built on the Pyxis ES platform using a robust, standardized set of hardware and software components. The hardware features introduce a new standard in dispensing cabinet system supportability and reliability. The software platform enables simple, efficient workflows centered on the patient while improving clinical and medication management processes for pharmacy, nursing and staff. The user interface significantly reduces the number of steps in key workflows, such as decreasing the steps to dispense a medication by half.

Our Lady of the Lake will extend the value of its investment in the Pyxis ES platform by implementing the Pyxis^® Anesthesia ES system in the operating rooms (ORs) and procedural areas across the hospital. Powered by the Pyxis Enterprise Server, the Pyxis Anesthesia ES system offers the same innovative centralized system management and enterprise-wide capabilities as the Pyxis MedStation ES system, including enhanced formulary and user management for pharmacy and improved system management for information technology (IT) departments. The redesigned Pyxis Anesthesia ES system provides simple and improved patient-centric workflows, and security enhancements that promote medication safety and hospital compliance efforts.

"We look forward to supporting Our Lady of the Lake with the most robust medication dispensing solution available," said Rusty Frantz, senior vice president and general manager of Dispensing Technologies at CareFusion. "The new Pyxis ES platform provides the next-generation of technology to support safe medication dispensing and administration efficiency."

About Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center
Our Lady of the Lake, a private not-for-profit 700-bed medical center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is committed to building a healthy community through excellence in patient care and education. A part of the Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System, Our Lady of the Lake includes a Regional Medical Center, dedicated Children's Hospital, 350-provider Physician Group primary care network, and free-standing emergency room in Livingston Parish. Consistently awarded for compassionate care, clinical expertise, leading edge technology and innovation, Our Lady of the Lake is recognized in the areas of trauma and emergency care, stroke, heart & vascular, cancer care and minimally-invasive procedures and more. Our Lady of the Lake is a primary teaching site for graduate medical education programs and serves 35,000 inpatients and 350,000 outpatients annually.  For more information, visit www.ololrmc.com.

About CareFusion Corporation
CareFusion (NYSE: CFN) is a global corporation serving the health care industry with products and services that help hospitals measurably improve the safety and quality of care. The company develops industry-leading technologies including Alaris® infusion pumps, Pyxis® automated dispensing and patient identification systems, AVEA®, AirLife® and LTV® series ventilation and respiratory products, ChloraPrep® products, MedMined® services for data mining surveillance, V. Mueller® surgical instruments, and an extensive line of products that support interventional medicine. CareFusion employs more than 15,000 people across its global operations. More information may be found at www.carefusion.com.

SOURCE CareFusion Corporation