St. Clair Health’s Pharmacy Is Reducing Costs and Errors, and Increasing Efficiency

By Andrew Wilson

Anyone who has ever undertaken a home renovation knows there can be a big difference between doing the job cheaply or doing the job right. When St. Clair Health elected to streamline and update its pharmacy department, it elected to do the job right.

Updating the pharmacy was the challenge given to Bob Reynolds when he became director of St. Clair’s pharmacy in May 2021. St. Clair has a history of innovation, as it was a beta site in 2003 for the first automated robot for the pharmacy but that was 20 years ago. When Reynolds looked at the pharmacy, he felt the shelves and packaging in the pharmacy were “old school.”

“It was a unique opportunity to look at automation and investigate the various products on the market,” said Reynolds. “Our administration had the foresight to buy the complete package.”

Automating the system does not mean that machines do everything. Reynolds says that humans still manage the system, but now there is an automated process and barcode scanning when the physician orders the medication, the pharmacy supplies it, and it is administered to the patient.

“There is scanning technology used at every step, and that ensures the right patient receives the right medication at the right dosage at the right time,” he said. “This decreases the possibility of medication errors significantly.

Buying the complete package for the pharmacy meant a hefty investment in pharmacy services, but to attempt to upgrade it only partly could end up being more costly.

“When you elect to only replace certain things, there is always something missing, so we asked ourselves, ‘what if we replace everything?’” said Reynolds. “We are only three to four months into the new system being fully operational and we are already seeing benefits.”

Reynolds says the benefits St. Clair is reaping is threefold: better cost control, a better handle on inventory and ordering, and reducing the chances of medication errors.

“The scanning technology is utilized at every step where it is possible to catch an error,” he said.

One of the frequent criticisms of greater automation in the workplace is that it will do away with jobs. Reynolds dismisses this notion. He said pharmacy automation doesn’t take jobs away because people are still needed to manage the system. Efficiency facilitated through automation has allowed pharmacists to take on other roles.

“It has changed the role of the pharmacist from something like an operational factory worker to a member of the clinical team and allows us to use our knowledge to provide better patient care,” he said. “For example, the pharmacy has begun to take on medication reconciliation.”

When a pharmacist does a medication reconciliation they are looking to identify and track medications the patients are currently taking as the patient transitions through care and identify potential drug interactions or adverse effects. Patients sometimes have multiple doctors and use multiple pharmacies, and because of that, it can be difficult to detect discrepancies. With the pharmacy automation now being used at St. Clair, there is a better chance for the pharmacist to catch these problems and avoid medication errors.

“We looked at our system from a medication safety perspective,” said Reynolds, “and now St. Clair and our patients are reaping the benefits.”

St. Clair Health is a nationally recognized, integrated health system with more than 2,500 employees and 600 physicians serving 500,000 residents of the region. It encompasses St. Clair Hospital; St. Clair Medical Group—a growing multispecialty physician group; St. Clair Health Foundation; and other related entities. St. Clair is a top decile performer in patient safety, clinical outcomes, patient satisfaction, and value. With its main campus in Mt. Lebanon, St. Clair also offers health care services at three outpatient centers in Mt. Lebanon, Bethel Park, and Peters Township. As a leader in high value healthcare, St. Clair accepts all major insurances. For more information, visit St. Clair on the web at www.stclair.org.