Design, implementation, and evaluation of a thrice-daily cartfill process

Efficiencies achieved through a redesign of the central pharmacy cartfill process at a large academic medical center are reported.

In an initiative to expand clinical pharmacy services in a budget-neutral manner, pharmacists at the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics (UWHC) led the transition from a once-daily to a thrice-daily medication cartfill model designed to better align pharmacy operations with patterns of medication ordering, delivery, and order discontinuation. A pre-post analysis demonstrated several benefits of the shift to thrice-daily cartfill, including a 32.7% decrease in the mean daily number of extemporaneously prepared oral doses. Overall, the new cartfill process resulted in reduction in lead times for three of four peak delivery periods, roughly a 55-65% reduction. During the postimplementation period, the frequency of requests for missing medication doses through the electronic medical record (EMR) system increased from 1.13% to 1.43%; however, this increase may have been the result of improved nurse adherence to EMR protocols for requests for missing medications.

Implementation of a thrice-daily cartfill process and ancillary changes at UWHC resulted in a 2.1% increase in cartfill doses dispensed, a 44.1% decrease in first doses dispensed, and a 42.9% decrease in the number of medications returned to the central pharmacy. This resulted in a reduction in waste within pharmacy operations and allowed for redeployment of two technician full-time equivalents to expand pharmacy services.