We have seen a lot of spreadsheets, PDFs, documents, and more in our many Rhazdrugs builds. One thing we’ve learned that is universal is you can have the very best policies and hazardous drug handling information, but if it isn’t easy to access and easy to understand, who is it serving? Your hazardous drug handling information is about more than USP <800> compliance; you’re protecting your employees.
In our Cerner blog, we shared that users are twice as likely to access hazardous drug handling information when it’s in the EHR versus when it’s not. But what about actually getting the information into Epic?
Here’s one question we got recently from the Willow analyst about placing Rhazdrugs into Epic: “Is this a project or a ticket?”
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While your Rhazdrugs implementation in Epic seems, well, like an ‘epic’ project, it’s definitely a nothing burger of a ticket. In fact, the instructions for implementation take up a whopping two pages. Many clients are equally surprised (and sometimes suspicious) to hear that implementing Rhazdrugs in Epic takes 10 minutes.
We understand the stakes are high in the healthcare industry, and a botched or even drawn-out technology implementation can affect patient outcomes.
As a result, we designed Rhazdrugs and Formweb to be remarkably easy to implement. We also provide extensive hands-on support, ensuring you always feel supported in the process. One of our clients shared that she was accustomed to signing the PO for new software and then never hearing from the sales rep again. However, she was pleasantly surprised that we were there during the deployment of Rhazdrugs and Formweb, providing support and guidance every step of the way. That’s why we say, “We do the work so you don’t have to.”
Another question we get from Willow teams is about the effort to maintain this in Epic. We’ve heard horror stories about health systems switching from NIOSH 2016 to NIOSH 2020. The problem is two-fold:
- They had to update each drug manually in their spreadsheet THEN in their word document.
- In Epic, every change for each drug required its own support ticket
We hand your Willow team one file for all of your drugs, and all they have to do is run it through your Epic utility.
The ease of implementation and maintenance does not diminish how profound the effects of easy access to hazardous drug safety information are on the health and well-being of healthcare workers. Several years ago, we analyzed data from our Formweb solution to examine how the ease of access to safety information impacted its usage frequency, and the results were eye-opening. A stunning 85-90% of clinicians were more likely to use safety information if it was easily accessible at the point of care. To achieve that result with little effort is a no-brainer.
Also important to note is that this safety information is tailored to your facility's unique formulary, safety policies, and communication needs, as well as links to industry safety references like Safety Data Sheets, FDA, DailyMed, and DrugBank. You don’t lose value in favor of speed.
As you can see in the image below, your hazardous drug handling information is available anywhere in Epic where you can place a link.
According to Definitive Healthcare, Epic is the EHR market leader, with a 37.7% share of hospitals in 2023. That is in line with our customer base, but we also support many hospitals and healthcare systems that use Cerner and Meditech. If you are one of those users, rest easy because the Rhazdrugs integration with Cerner and Meditech is just as easy as it is with Epic.
Bottom line:
If you are drowning in decisions involving which drugs are associated to which groupers, we’re here to pull you out of the deep end. We make it simple to improve access to hazardous drug safety information by integrating it into Epic, and we make it as easy as possible for your Willow team.
Curious about Rhazdrugs? Check out other Safety First blogs on implementation, pharmacy’s leading role in USP <800> compliance, and risk management. As always, we’re here to answer your questions. Just email us at info@rpharmy.com or schedule a demo on my calendar.
