Little Company of Mary Hospital and Health Care Centers

Business challenge

Little Company of Mary Hospital and Health Care Centers needed a more efficient way to look up drug interactions and dosing.

Transformation

The team used the Micromedex suite of solutions to expedite and inform pharmacy decisions.

Results

Business challenge story

Room for improvement

Little Company of Mary is a 298-bed, not-for-profit Catholic community hospital located in Evergreen Park, Illinois. Before the hospital’s leadership reached out to IBM Watson Health™, Little Company of Mary’s staff knew there was room for improvement in their pharmacy’s workflow related to efficiency in accessing drug information. With new drugs coming to market every day, pharmacists could commit every waking hour to combing through literature and still not be able to digest all the possible variables that could lead to adverse drug interactions.

Transformation story

Avoiding negative interactions, unnecessary procedures

Rich Mioni, PharmD, Critical Care Pharmacy Specialist at Little Company of Mary, had a familiarity with the Micromedex suite of solutions. He had used Micromedex during his residency, and when he began his search for a solution that would speed the drug information review process, he knew exactly where to turn.

“When it comes to drug information, speed, accuracy and reliability are all vital, and Micromedex was the most efficient way to rapidly get that information,” Mioni says. “You never want to just ‘Google it’ or to use sources that aren’t reputable, so we needed something that would give us the immediacy of running our questions through a search engine, but that would also give us answers that are backed up by years of industry expertise.”

Results story

Making more informed decisions

The Micromedex solution has played a key role in preventing clinical errors. “If there are drugs I’m not familiar with, the solution helps me confidently determine an appropriate dosage range and what we should be ordering for our patients,” Mioni explains. “That’s even more important when it comes to IV compatibility. We always have issues with so many drugs being infused, that we need to find out: Can these drugs run together? Do we need an extra line? Do we need a central access point? There have been numerous times where we’ve thought drugs could go together, and a search has told us that is not the case. Had those drugs interacted, it would have led to an adverse outcome for our patient.”

Another benefit is saving patients from having procedures that they simply don’t need. “Even more than catching two drugs that can’t go together, using Micromedex allows us to uncover certain drugs that are compatible with one another,” Mioni explains. “In those instances, a lot of times we can avoid invasive central line placement or additional peripheral access by allowing two or more drugs to infuse together in the same line, which provides a huge clinical benefit.”

Mioni and his team also find the Micromedex mobile app valuable in the ICU setting. “The mobile app is a real game changer for us. It provides so much information right at our fingertips on a device that everyone always has with them,” he explains. “I’ve used the app in the middle of code or emergency situations, where someone is actively administering chest compressions and we need to make a quick decision. In those situations, it’s not feasible to go run out to a computer and look something up; having that information so readily available can be lifesaving.”

About Little Company of Mary Hospital and Health Care Centers

Little Company of Mary is a 298-bed, not-for-profit Catholic community hospital located in Evergreen Park, Illinois. The hospital was established in 1930 and employs about 2,200 people in a dozen facilities across the state.

About IBM Watson Health

For more than a century, IBM has been creating innovations that matter. And with Watson Health, we are committed to help build smarter health ecosystems. This means working with you to help you achieve simpler processes, better care insights, faster breakthroughs, and improved experiences for people around the world. Our core strengths combined — deep industry expertise in health, data and analytics, actionable insights, and our reputation for trust and security — can enable us to deliver support for our clients. Together with our clients and partners, IBM is putting smart to work. For more information, visit https://www.ibm.com/watson-health

Solution component

• Micromedex

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