Enabling Swift and Safe Healthcare Worldwide

Pharmacy OneSource: What problems were you facing before you implemented Sentri7?

Steve Bethea: Sentri7 picks up where our basic pharmacy system leaves off. We were unable to identify patients taking a particular medication before Sentri7 came along. Now, in real time, if we have an urgent need to locate all patients taking a specific medication, such as in the case of a recall, we could enter the drug or drugs into Sentri7 and a report would quickly indicate those patients. It also allows us to search patients that might qualify for a certain treatment programs or drug studies.

Pharmacy OneSource: What initiatives are you using Sentri7 to help with?

Steve Bethea: It helps us identify potential coding problems. For instance, we were having trouble with core measures in educating congestive heart failure patients. We may not know that they are CHF patients, because they may be admitted with different complaints. Sentri7 is able to query patients for those on medications that would typical be prescribed for a CHF patient. We then print a list of those patients. We can then verify with the physician whether or not the patient has CHF, and if so, we will provide the education and document the activity in the patient's medical record. Appropriate documentation is usually financially rewarding.

Sentri7 prints a list of all patients receiving restricted antibiotics. After patients are seen by our clinical pharmacist the physician will be contacted if necessary to change the order. Sentri7 also provides us with a report of all the patients who are receiving any type of anticoagulant so we can make sure they are provided with appropriate education. The educational service is then documented in Quantifi. It helps us track the patients who have been seen and those who need to be seen and the patients who may need to be followed up.

Pharmacy OneSource: How does Quantifi tie-in to help?

Steve Bethea: Quantifi is a fantastic tool for follow-up. It used to take us sometimes months with the reporting forms to investigate all the medication errors and now we have a 24-hour turnaround time. All the key people can view the error, investigate it and make their written recommendations and it allows us to track follow-up. The same holds true for adverse drug reaction reporting.

Pharmacy OneSource: What do you like best about Sentri7?

Steve Bethea: It's much easier to use than I had expected, and more robust in its reporting capabilities than I expected. We have really only cracked the surface of usage so far, it's capable of so much more than we're doing. I think it's a phenomenal tool and I'm happy we have it. We are inventing new uses for the software all the time.

Participant:
Steve Bethea, PharmD, Pharmacy Director
USA Medical Center Hospital - Mobile, AL

If you would like to contact Steve Bethea regarding this interview, please e-mail customerservice@pharmacyonesource.com and we will forward your questions.