Baxter Announces Winners of Seventh Annual Leap Award Recognizing Hospital Pharmacies for Excellence in Lean Practices and Safety Initiatives
Las Vegas -
This week at the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) 2016 Midyear Meeting, Baxter International Inc. (NYSE:BAX) announced the recipients of its seventh annual Leadership Excellence Awards in Pharmacy (LEAP) for improving pharmacy work flow processes, efficiencies and outcomes in daily practice. The award program was started in 2010 to recognize institutions that have successfully implemented pharmacy programs focusing on more productive pharmacy practices and initiatives to maximize safety and efficiency.
Baxter established the LEAP Awards to help facilitate sharing of best practices in the hospital pharmacy and to showcase those organizations using evidence-based outcomes and lean principles to advance pharmacy practice and thereby improve overall operations and delivery of care.
“We congratulate these outstanding hospitals for their continued efforts to not only positively impact patient outcomes, but also increase efficiency within their hospital setting,” said Phil Rackliffe, Global Franchise Head of Baxter’s Integrated Pharmacy Solutions. “With Baxter’s rich history of advancing patient safety, we share common goals in working together for the best outcome for the patients we serve together.”
2017 LEAP Award Recipients
Gold
Next Step in Antibiotic Stewardship: Pharmacist-Provided Penicillin Allergy Testing
Maury Regional Medical Center, Columbia, Tenn.
Following a recommendation by the Centers for Disease Control to evaluate patients reporting a penicillin allergy, Maury Regional Medical Center improved access to penicillin allergy testing by implementing a pharmacist-provided testing service in the inpatient setting, which helped ensure appropriate antibiotic protocol for patients and ended up saving the institution approximately $30,000 each year.
Silver
Engaging the C-Suite in the Utility of DoseEdge (Pharmacy Workflow Manager)
Allegheny General Hospital, Pittsburgh, Pa.
The pharmacy staff at Allegheny General Hospital conducted research to measure the value of its pharmacy workflow system in workflow efficiency, patient safety and cost to better inform purchasing and related operational decisions.
Bronze
Utilizing Lean Methodology and Radiofrequency Identification Technology (RFID) to Improve the Hospital Crash Cart Process
Mercy St. Rita's Medical Center, Lima, Ohio
To ensure that crash carts at their medical center had current-dated supplies and were meeting requirements to avoid drug diversions, the institution implemented a process to systematically check the carts for expired materials and a locking system to keep the carts and items on the cart secure.
Honorable Mention
Scheduled Medication Administration Times - “Giving Nurses the Gift of Time”
Peninsula Regional Medical Center, Salisbury, Md.
To allow nurses more time with patients and decrease the potential for medication errors, this institution implemented standard times for administering medication to patients and batched medications together increasing the efficiency of how much time was spent administering medication over the course of a nurse’s shift.
About Baxter
Baxter provides a broad portfolio of essential renal and hospital products, including home, acute and in-center dialysis; sterile IV solutions; infusion systems and devices; parenteral nutrition; biosurgery products and anesthetics; and pharmacy automation, software and services. The company’s global footprint and the critical nature of its products and services play a key role in expanding access to healthcare in emerging and developed countries. Baxter’s employees worldwide are building upon the company’s rich heritage of medical breakthroughs to advance the next generation of healthcare innovations that enable patient care.