Children’s Hospital Boston is a 395-bed children’s hospital located in the Longwood Medical Center area of Boston Massachusetts. It’s a pretty cool place near Harvard School of Medicine as well as the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences; not to mention that it’s literally right across the street from the famous Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
I’ve had the pleasure of visiting Children’s Hospital and receiving a grand tour of the pharmacy and all its operations. The Pharmacy Director and IT Pharmacist have a great vision for what can be accomplished with the appropriate use of pharmacy automation and technology. They’re both quite practical about their decisions in this area.
The pharmacy itself makes great use of technology like the Cerner Pharmacy Information System, carousels, high-speed automated packagers, DoseEdge IV Workflow Management system, as well as a homegrown medication tracking system, which I found fascinating. The medication tracking system has been in use for some time now. Children’s built the system themselves, which makes it all the more impressive. You just don’t see that kind of thing these days.
The Director of Pharmacy at Children’s Hospital Boston provided me with a link to the YouTube video below. The video shows the nuts and bolts of their medication tracking system. While not detailed, it’ll give you a general idea of what it does.