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CytoCare brings bar code technology to the practice of oncology

Riverside Methodist Hospital, part of OhioHealth, plans to implement the CytoCare ® robot from McKesson as part of its initiative to drive efficiencies and improve safety for staff and patients via IV Automation . CytoCare is the only proven automation solution for compounding hazardous IVs used for chemotherapy and monoclonal antibody therapy. The new technology will enable the 800-bed facility to meet the anticipated growth within its Cancer Services department without requiring additional staff.

CytoCare is designed to improve staff safety by minimizing exposure to hazardous medications. At the same time, it increases efficiency by enabling optimal workflow. The level of automation, throughput and space requirements of the solution are specifically designed to work well within a hospital’s current pharmacy operations.

“Our pharmacy technicians prepare approximately 500 chemotherapy IVs each month for inpatients and our outpatient cancer facility, and a pharmacist checks each preparation,” said Charles McCluskey, PharmD, system vice president of pharmacy for the OhioHealth system. “With CytoCare, we can more efficiently prepare the IVs while reducing our technicians’ exposure to hazardous drugs and reducing the potential for manual compounding errors.”

In addition to improving pharmacy staff safety and workflow efficiency, by taking the most error-prone manual compounding steps out of human hands, CytoCare establishes a reliable, automated pharmacy compounding process that delivers safe, accurate preparations time after time.

“Automating the hazardous IV compounding process is a big win for us,” said McCluskey. “We currently use McKesson’s bar code scanning technology to dispense solid medications within our pharmacy. With CytoCare, we can introduce the same level of automation and bar coding to further improve the safety of oncology preparations.”

“Riverside Methodist Hospital has been a great partner to McKesson Automation for many years,” said Stanton McComb, president, McKesson Automation. “We are delighted with the opportunity to help automate the IV compounding process as part of the pharmacy’s overall goal of improving the quality of cancer services.”

The CytoCare robot will be demonstrated in McKesson booth #303 during the  45 th ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting and Exhibition , being held December 5 – 9 in Anaheim, Calif. More information about the CytoCare robot is available at www.safecompounding.com .

Source: McKesson