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Scott Mecham, Director of Pharmacy at Dixie Regional Medical Center:
"Installation of POMS was very smooth. Our pharmacist's believe POMS is much
better product than McKesson's MedDirect that we replaced POMS
with. POMS integrates very well with our HELP Pharmacy
Information System. When we open an order in POMS, it pops up the patient profile in the HELP system. POMS did not require any help from the HELP System Vendor for this integration. The Pharmacy Staff is very happy with the product."
Terrie Koehler, Director of Pharmacy at McKay Dee Hospital Center:
"I can't believe we went live in four days
including training of all users. The POMS on-site installation team
was friendly and very helpful. POMS seamlessly integrate's
with our HELP ADT HL7 interface for patient demographic information.
The RN Dashboard was very well received by our Nursing
staff. Pharmacist's are happy with the product. POMS
offers a much better workflow than our existing paper based
process. There is an overall increase in productivity and
better patient care."
Lori Hicks, RN, BSN, Patient Care Director at Longmont commented:
"I like the RN Dashboard feature of POMS. It
lets the charge nurse and unit administrative assistants to
monitor the status of orders without having to log-on to POMS and
without having to call the pharmacy. Since the dashboard
operates as a screensaver, there is no concern for security breach.
With its HIPAA compliance and ease of use, the dashboard is a very
useful feature."
Steve McFadden, Director of Pharmacy at Longmont commented:
"Pharmacist's have caught on to POMS very quickly
--
POMS' human interface is very intuitive. We have already seen
the wait time being cut down.
I, personally, like the feature that POMS automatically pops-up the
correct (proper) patient on the Horizon Meds Manager Pharmacy
Information System screen when a pharmacist opens up an order on the
POMS screen. This feature no doubt helps in increased
productivity, but importantly contributes to patient safety
preventing entering of an order for a wrong patient inadvertently."
Mr. McFadden added "We operate in a decentralized
mode and my phramacists like the fact that they can all pitch-in and
share the workload." Now with respect to nursing, he said
"We are slowly rolling out the RN Dashboard feature to all
nursing units which should cut down the number of phone calls to the
pharmacy. By the way, the engineers who came for installation
were very pleasant, helpful and
knowledgable."
Kevin
Jones, Director of Primary Children Hospital at Intermountain
Healthcare where the POMS Product went alive recently
commented:
"POMS has been running very smoothly. Everyone
likes the way that the support personnel answer the questions
-- we are impressed that the suport team is so knowledgable -- and
the support has been excellent. With POMS, we are able to access the
orders from anywhere and not have to chase them. POMS work
well for us. I am comfortable in recommending POMS and
Integrated Informatics Inc."
Mr. Greg George, Director of Pharmacy at Western Maryland Hospital commented:
"Installation of POMS is the smoothest
that I have encoutered. The training went flawlessly mainly due to
the fact that the POMS Product is intutive. We are using the POMS
Product in a central as well as distributed environment in both the
campuses. We have the nurses involved now, and communicate with them
clarfication requests. The POMS Product interfaced with MEDITECH
seamlessly with NO help from MEDITECH or our IT staff.
Mr. Paul Carrier, Director of Pharmacy at Tift Memorial, commented:
"POMS has
made a big difference to our pharmacy department and nursing. The
staff likes the fact that the POMS Product is very intuitive � no
reason to hunt for �help� or �manuals� � the staff has
become very productive. POMS has the feature to act as a �virtual
printer�. POMS interfaced with McKesson STAR in fetching patient
demographics, poping up corresponding profile screen and capturing
the STAR order number and associating it with the requisition. All
of these integration were done in a day! Literally, man We LOVE the
Product.
Mr. Chuck
Ellis is Director of Pharmacy at Kennestone Hospital at Marietta,
Georgia. Kennestone Hospital is a member of the approx. 1000+ bed
Wellstar Health System; all of the hospitals in the Wellstar Health
System are deploying the POMS Product. Mr. Ellis commented:
"Being a big
hospital, we had to have through lots of hoops with Information
Technology department � security related issues, outside
connectivity, 32 phone fax server etc. Then there perceived problems
with integration Horizon Meds Manager of McKesson. Integrated
Informatics worked through these issues and non-issues and made POMS
functions as both the powers-that-be and the end-users like it. The
POMS guys did the implementation and integration with minimal help
from IT. When an order requisition is opened, POMS (1) automatically
brings the profile screen on the McKesson System (this avoids a
common error of entering medication orders for a wrong patient), (2)
captures the medication order number of the pharmacy information
systems, associates the order number with the requisition in POMS
and allows for searching of the requisition for a given pharmacy
information system order number, and (3) reads the barcode on the
requisitions, uses the knowledge of from which hospital the order
originated from and then fetches the proper patient based on the
combination of bar-coded MRN and the hospital (this resolves the
problem of MRN not being unique across hospitals in a multi-hospital
network). Another feature of POMS that the nurses really like is
that they can stack multi-page orders for different patients on the
fax machine and send them to POMS. POMS separate the orders when it
recognizes that the barcodes are different. POMS has made
pharmacists and technicians concentrate on medications and
interventions, spending less time telephone tagging with nursing.
Nurses have already seen improvement in the turn-around time.
;
Pat Snell, Director of Clinical Informatics at John C. Lincoln North Mountain Hospitals commented:
"I knew that
the installation and training of the POMS Product went very well
since no one (from nursing or pharmacy or information systems
department) called me, which was the best indicator. The team from
Integrated Informatics Inc. worked very well with our team. We were
concerned whether POMS would have problems working with the Clear
Cube blade PCs or if they would require help from MEDITECH, but
Integrated Informatics kept its words -- POMS works with Clear Cube
and no help was needed from Meditech. The POMS technology seems to
have been well thought out and designed. And the team is very
professional. As we sat around and chatted regarding new functions,
pharmacy suggested that a function whereby the Clinical Coordinator
would do specific tracking would be nice. Integrated Informatics
implemented that feature as well. The product works as
sold!"
Lalit Mansukhani, Director of Pharmacy at John C. Lincoln Deer Valley Hospital, commented:
"POMS is a
highly functional product --- it is a nice system. Both the
pharmacists and technicians like the ease-up of use and the
intuitiveness of the product. POMS integrates very well with
MEDITECH CLIENT/SERVER Pharmacy Information System. POMS recognizes
the barcoded patient Account Number, gets the patient demographics
from MEDITECH using its non-invasive interface without requiring any
help or code form MEDITECH. POMS synchronizes the MEDITECH screen
with the order requisition screen. Each pharmacist workstation has
dual screens, one for MEDITECH Client/Serverand another for order
requisition for POMS. When a user opens an order requisition for
patient x on the POMS screen,the POMS Product automatically brings
up the order entry profile screen on the MEDITECH for the patient x.
This feature not only increases productivity of the pharmacists, but
also reduces errors where medication orders might get entered for an
incorrect patient. Overall my staff and I have been impressed with
the product to date and hope that we have a long and mutually
profitable relationship."
Scott Waldrop, Director of Pharmacy at John C. Lincoln North Mountain Hospital, commented:
"The
installation and training of the POMS Product went smoothly. We
placed the POMS Product in production in both the hospitals in four
days! The product, especially with its integration with MEDITECH, is
highly functional and beneficial. People from Integrated Informatics
Inc. were responsive and helpful."
Julie Larsen, Director of Pharamcy at Washoe
Health Sytem, a 600 bed facility at Reno, Nevada, up on
implemetation and go alive of the POMS Product commented:
"The
installation of POMS went very smoothly. Integrated Informatic's
people are amazing. Great people to work with. I tried the product
yesterday, hands-on, it was so user-freindly that even I can use it
intutively. I am pleased."
Dan Yates, Asst Director at Washoe Health
System commented:
"POMS is a
pretty nice system. Users (bothe the pharmacists and techincians)
like the product well. Smooth installation.Has changed our workflow
compeletely for good!."
Up on forming a relationship between Consorta
Purchasing Group and Integrated Informatics Inc., Mr. Joel Nitti,
Senior Director, Pharmacy Services of Consorta, commented:
"The POMS
Product from Integrated Informatics was actually championed by
several committee members including Nancy Huff, Director of Pharmacy
at Caritas Norwood Hospital, MA. Nancy liked the functionality and
price point of the POMS Product. She championed for its inclusion as
an offering blessed by Consorta."
Up on forming a relationship with Consorta
Purchasing Group, Dr. Kapali Eswaran, President and CEO of
Integrated Informatics Inc., commented:
"Hospitals across the country, regardless of
their size and the Information Technology Infrastructure (Meditech,
Cerner, Siemens, Eclipsys, McKesson etc) choose Integrated
Informatics�s high functional, cost effective POMS solution to
help reduce medication errors, operate more efficiently, and
decrease costs -- ultimately contributing to improved clinical and
financial outcomes. We are delighted, proud and humbled that
Novation Consorta selected the POMS Product as a solution of choice.
Integrated Informatics is committed to be a major player in the
Patient Care Continuum and is about to release its Medication
Administration and Bedside Scanning Product MABS and Medication
history and Reconciliation Information Technology Product, MERIT "
Ed Troell, Vice President of Professional
Services, Phoenix Children's Hospital, a 304 bed facility, and one
the ten largest free standing children's hospitals in the nation:
"Many of our IT application challenges here at Phoenix Children's Hospital are directly related to the remote hosting of our house information system. With POMS, this was not an obstacle. The POMS team demonstrated a high level of confidence and when they left, we had the connectivity we had been looking for between the HIS and the PIS. We were paperless in less than 10 days. The conversion process was painless when we went live. POMS offers and provides great user flexibility and robust user features. We are a hybrid medical record environment and POMS helped us bridge the paper/electronic gap completely. From a global view, POMS is a truly viable, rapid IT solution that works.
Ten days to live use -
no ramp up, no rollout, no downtime. POMS promised, POMS delivered.
"
How POMS helps Nursing -
Maggie Gadaire MS, RN, Director of Nurse
Informatics, Altru Health System:
"I spoke
with several nursing managers and summarized the feedback from
nursing. "With POMS in use for only 3 weeks, we can not say if we,
the nurses, are gaining more patient time, but we are making fewer
calls to pharmacy, we see reduced med errors, our
communication with pharmacy is improving, orders from nursing get to
pharmacy sooner, because we don't have go look for tubes, batch
orders, and then send them down, and turn around time has improved.
"
Jeff Zak RPh, Director of
Pharmacy, Altru Health System, North Dakota:
"At the time
we chose POMS, we had a pneumatic tube medication order
communication system and we were also several pharmacists short. I
wanted to get a solution that addressed both of these issues. POMS,
for us, became a tactical solution or tool that would allow us to
get rid of the majority of the "paper shuffle" and increase the
efficiency of the workflow. It also gave us the capability to triage
orders from the Emergency Room and other ancillary areas. (A process that JCAHO examines
closely). In addition,
the reporting capabilities would provide "hard" numbers and printable
reports on order turnaround times.
We looked at several systems and chose POMS due to it's advanced
software capabilities and features. There was the choice of purchasing
or leasing the product and we chose to lease.
The team from Integrated Informatics was very
easy to work with from initial interest through the demonstration,
contract negotiations, the install process and even today for
support.
Nursing thought
initially that POMS would take more of their time; now the consensus
is that POMS actually is saving them time. They think its great.
POMS has helped us enormously; we're in
real time now with electronic charting, and POMS has proven itself.
Our STAT orders are now
consistently under 10 minutes and the average for all orders combined is
approximately 30 minutes. That's not bad when working short staffed. With the reporting features, I can provide these numbers to JCAHO or
anyone who's interested, anytime. In fact, I am now sharing reports,
generated by POMS, with other leaders throughout the organization.
I came to know recently of the fact
that NOVATION has chosen POMS. I am not
surprised. It shows to us the quality and the integrity of the
product and company."
Michael McGiboney, RPh, Senior Product
Manager, NOVATION :
"Novation awards product agreements to the low best bidder through a comprehensive contracting process using member-driven criteria and a weighted award decisions tool that considers financial and product specification/quality factors."
Novation has awarded Integrated Informatics, Inc., a three-year contract to supply healthcare automation technology to its 2,500 members, and one of only five companies awarded Novation contracts from a field of 27. Novation is the health care contracting services company for VHA Inc. and the University Health System Consortium (UHC).
"Hospitals across the
country, regardless of their size, regardless of their Information
Technology Infrastructure (Meditech, Cerner, Siemens, Eclipsys,
McKesson, etc.) and regardless whether pharmacies are centralized or
distributed, choose Integrated Informatics' lower cost highly
functional POMS solution to help reduce medication errors, operate
more efficiently, and decrease costs - ultimately contributing to
improved clinical and financial outcomes. With our expertise in
integration and interfacing, POMS will help VHA and UHC members
increase patient safety, reduce costs, and improve productivity in
both nursing and pharmacy. We are delighted, proud and humbled that
Novation selected POMS as a solution of choice. Integrated
Informatics continues its commitment to the Patient Care Continuum
and is set to release our Medication Administration and Bedside
Scanning Product - MABS " explained Dr. Kapali Eswaran, President
and CEO.
Chuck Christian, CIO, Good Samaritan Hospital,
Vincennes, IN., a member of the HIMSS Board of Directors:
"We're a McKesson shop, and like most CIO's, I want the fewest number of vendors to manage. So when our Pharmacy Director brought POMS to me, initially I was skeptical, but after learning about the functionality and value POMS would bring I fully supported the effort.
From my
perspective, POMS is a "low-impact" technology, due to the ease of
integration, and minimal involvement with my team. As CIO, I hear
from nursing, pharmacy and my own department. They all seem
satisfied. "
Dave Gravender, CIO, Kaweah Delta Health Care
District, a 485 bed hospital in Central California:
"What can I say? POMS works as advertised. This
is a Seimens' shop, so I was a worried about the integration and
functionality by going with another vendor. We looked at Pyxis; way
too much money. Glad we found POMS. "
Judy Beda, R.N., BS, Clinical Systems Director,
Leesburg Regional MedicalCenter:
"I was
intensely involved in the installation and training of POMS. After
seeing the installation, less than 3 hours, the consensus here is
that you folks have truly thought of everything. POMS will be a true
asset to LMRC!"
Denise S. Kachel, Asst. Director of Pharmacy,
Gundersen Lutheran Hospital:
"I was
involved in the selection and installation of POMS. My reaction was
,Where do you get such good people to do installation and training
of pharmacy, nursing and information systems? Who got to design and
develop such a comprehensive product like POMS? Your guys at
Integrated Informatics Inc. put other vendors to shame. We have
never gone alive with a product even on a limited scale in 6 days.
Your software works with our hardware components just as you said
and you even helped us in configuring our hardware. Please feel free
to give my name as a reference."
James McNulty, Pharm.D, Director of Pharmacy,
Kaweah Delta Health Care District,a 485 bed hospital in Central
California, operating a decentralized pharmacy over three campuses,
all of which utilize POMS:
"As the end
user, I knew that if POMS worked, it would be a terrific fit. With
the satisfactory installation and interface guarantee, it was much
easier for the group to agree on POMS. Equally pleasant were
installation, training and support - any issue is handled right
away. Even the contracting process was a slam-dunk! I think its
important to note that the system improves efficiencies in the
pharmacy department, improving turnaround time on drugs, improving
patient care, and improves employee satisfaction.
"
Ed Riddle, Pharmacy Information Systems
Manager and Asst. Director of Pharmacy,Leesburg Regional Medical
Center:
"I, like
many here, was skeptical about POMS being more vaporware than
anything. But, after seeing POMS, and how easily it integrated with
McKesson, I am very impressed. I think what stands out most is the
intuitive nature of POMS. It seems to anticipate what the Nurse and
the Pharmacist need to do next, and is ready to take on the task. As
for training, its so simple, I think you could train a monkey on it
in 5 minutes!"
Alan Frashier, Pharm.D., Pharmacy
Director, Leesburg Regional Medical Center:
"When I saw
POMS, I knew there was NO COMPARISON. More features, more
functionality, POMS goes well beyond what we expected. And as for
installation and training, these guys really care about our success.
I believe this is a great partnership."
Mike O' Grady, Director
of Pharmacy at Northwest Texas Health System:
"I have
had several pharmacists come into my office and state that they like
the system, and it makes them more efficient by expediting the
medication ordering process by allowing them to receive orders
outside of the Central Pharmacy, and by providing an electronic
trail & record of the order. I have also noted a decrease in
pharmacist order entry errors. The time to process orders has
decreased appreciably. The ability to copy the patient number and
paste it into Siemens-Rx system has assisted in this reduction,
along with the ability to read orders more clearly and magnify them
for improved readability."
Randie Dreiman,
Director of Pharmacy at Good Samaritan Hospital, Vincennes,
Indiana:(Randie�s email to the editor of Pharmacy Purchasing and
Products, reproduced with his permission.)
I read with interest your article on Medication Order Management Systems in
Pharmacy Purchasing and Products, vol 2, no 2. I would like to take this
opportunity to point out that there is another vendor that you failed to
mention along with the 'big guys'. The company is Integrated Informatics,
Inc based in Atlanta.
Since they are a smaller company, I have found them to be very responsive to
our needs and willing to make modifications - sometimes within hours of a
request. Sometimes, "smaller" is better.
Integrated product is better (more functionality, does not require PC-based
scanners) and at the same time is priced MUCH lower than the other systems.
Check them out at www.ii-i.com
Mark Harmanous,
Clinical Pharmacist and IT Pharmacy Director,Butler Memorial
Hospital:
"I
wanted to let you all to know that we have just run some data and
presented it to our P&T committee that shows a dramatic
reduction in "Order Clarification" pharmacist interventions since
February, which we figure POMS must be at least partially
responsible for. We have also noticed a decline in the overrides
from Pyxis over the last month which suggests that the pharmacists
are actually processing orders faster than they were prior to POMS.
Bar-coding continues to go well and orders tagged for JCAHO
compliance for unapproved abbreviation are now being forwarded to
our doctors as "reminders", which the Hospital Administration likes.
Thanks, as always, for your assistance."
Since 1993, Integrated
Informatics has been providing information technology solutions to
Hospitals and Healthcare organizations. We provide reliable,
seamless integration, and deliver what we promise: on time, on
quality, and on budget. As a company, we have a passion for
technology that is easy to use, easy to manage, and provides a rapid
return on investment.
Our solutions span the Patient Care Continuum including Pharmacy Order Management, Medication Administration & Bedside Scanning, Lab & Radiology Result Reporting and Order Entry.
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