- Customers & Clients
MPSRx
MPSRx and Expedient Work Together to deploy a Safe, Reliable, and Cost Effective Medication Management Solution for Long Term Care Facilities
Millennium Pharmacy Systems (MPSRx) is an innovative provider of technology enabled medication management services for long term care nursing facilities. MPSRx has developed and implemented a medication management and delivery service that offers long term care facilities the opportunity to easily order, administer, reorder and maintain medication and treatment records through a centralized web-based system.
Designed to virtually eliminate medication errors, the system also tracks and records all of the medication and treatment records needed for regulatory compliance, and can also identify drug interactions before the patient is administered the medication. The architecture of this program was conceived in 2003, and is now managed by newly-installed Chief Technology Officer Suresh Vishnubhatla. Although MPSRx has been in business for over four years, Vishnubhatla joined the team in early 2007. He made the decision to work with Pittsburgh-based Expedient Communications after having great success with them in the past.
Vishnubhatla explains how critical it is to partner with Expedient as a reliable provider of managed data services. "The uniqueness of what we do is that it is not simply just ordering and shipping. We have designed an automated web-based mechanism to track and fulfill prescriptions that fully integrates the process from prescribing to ordering to dispensing and administering the medications. All the while, we make sure this information is readily accessible and can be collected within a patient’s ongoing history."
Vishnubhatla continues, "As an added layer of sophistication and customer service, we actually install this infrastructure into our customers’ facilities; the wireless networks, laptops, medication carts, and desktops needed to collect information. The technology infrastructure allows a placed order to be sent to our system and then to our pharmacy immediately and the prescriptions are filled using a multi-dose package. The packages are individually bar coded with the information that identifies the medication and patient as well as the date and time of administration. When the nurse administers the medication to the patient the information is scanned to verify that the correct medication and dosage are being used. All the information is stored within the system."
In the past, this kind of tracking was often done manually by staff at the nursing facility. Staff members may or may not have had access to computer training, database maintenance skills, or a patient’s prior history. Errors are inherent in any manual process, and with HIPAA requirements an important consideration, care facilities are increasingly leveraging technology to save money and meet requirements. For long term care facilities, which are often privately owned small businesses, the cost savings associated with automating these tasks can quickly add up. The MPSRx software solution is called MPSRx 360º and it has changed the way managed care providers administer medication with the elimination of manual entries, monthly physician order recaps and MAR and TAR audits. MPSRx 360 can also alert nurses and physicians of any drug interactions, allergies, dosage and formulary warnings or other issues related to providing medications.
Vishnubhatla says of the managed services provider that supports this solution, "I’ve had a long relationship with Expedient. I worked with them in my previous position. I have always felt comfortable with their infrastructure and high level of service. When I came on board at MPSRx one of the first action items I looked into was to leverage Expedient’s infrastructure to host our applications."
"Obviously, all of these applications must be hosted in a redundant facility that can make them available on the web 24x7. This is critical to the safety of the patients, and to the level of service we are committed to providing our customers. From an operational standpoint we are not a paper and pen based system. To maintain our high service levels we get all of our information electronically."
Vishnubhatla says Expedient has gone above and beyond his expectations in providing flexible and cost effective service. "We are an existing business so when it did come time to migrate to Expedient I could not afford to have any interruptions in service. It has to work immediately, so there was a lot of staging and getting it all together that occurred in advance of the move. Especially when you consider that our orders are for medication; this is a system that cannot be interrupted. They did a nice job of working with my operations and IT group here to get the infrastructure up and running, making sure it was all tested and stable before going online."
Vishnubhatla also recounts a moment when he knew he’d made the right choice. "We threw an obstacle at them at the beginning as one of the pieces of hardware that we wanted to use from a load balancing standpoint was one that Expedient had not used before. We really liked the load balancing feature in the Citrix NetScaler application acceleration solution as it enabled us to deploy our web application faster and helped us reduce our operating and support costs. I am very happy at the way Expedient and Citrix worked with each other to provide us the solution we wanted. Expedient went through the process of evaluating it, training themselves, and working with Citrix so they could support us. In fact, they validated the equipment, fully supported it for us, and then installed it. It is working great so far."
He said he appreciates Expedient’s flexibility as well as its willingness, in this situation, to figure out how to use the hardware before verification and installation. "If they had just said "no sorry we don’t use that" and let it go I would’ve been very disappointed. Instead, I was pleased with their commitment to my business."
Expedient manages MPSRx systems from its Pittsburgh data center. The company operates business class data centers in Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh and boasts thousands of nationwide clients. Its services are backed by the power of one of the most extensive award winning Ethernet Networks in the country.
About Millennium Pharmacy Systems, Inc. (MPSRx)
Millennium Pharmacy Systems is a pioneer in the field of medication management systems for the long term care industry. The company utilizes advanced information handling technologies and informatics-driven logistics to provide a virtually error-free environment for managing and administering medications for residents of nursing home facilities. For further information please visit www.mpsrx.com.
About Expedient
Expedient manages one of America’s largest all-Ethernet networks, delivering advanced internet, voice and managed services to commercial and government entities throughout the United States. Through the power of its carrier-class Ethernet IP network and class one data centers, Expedient provides innovative and cost-effective networking solutions engineered to meet even the most demanding business needs. Expedient is a proud member of the Continental Broadband family of commercial internet data service providers wholly owned by Landmark Communications. Privately owned Landmark Communications’ companies are a diverse group of award-winning publications and media outlets, including newspapers, television broadcasting, cable TV programming (The Weather Channel), and electronic publishing. To learn more about Expedient and Ethernet Anywhere, please log on to expedient.com, ethernetanywhere.com or call 866-276-2973, toll-free.
