Omnicell Supports Creation of Medication Management Council to Identify Best Practices for Medication in the Hospital Environment

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., March 18, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Omnicell, Inc., (NASDAQ:OMCL) is proud to support the creation of the Medication Management Council, a thought leadership initiative comprised of industry, pharmacy and nursing professionals from health care provider organizations and academic institutions. The Council will publish three best practice lists focused on safety, compliance and efficiency to demonstrate its commitment to improving medication management to help ensure better patient outcomes. The first list, "The Top Ten Safety Best Practices," outlines the priorities related to safe medication management in the hospital, and can be found here.

The Top Ten Safety Best Practices list addresses medication safety standards, boils down hundreds of available guidelines, and suggests the base-level criteria that should be met for improving patient safety. Industry regulatory bodies are continuously publishing lengthy, sometimes complex, guidelines for safer medication management. Rather than create more content, the Council sought to distill the plethora of information into a list that hospitals and health systems can use to quickly assess which aspects of their medication management practices they need to improve upon and which areas may be missing altogether.

By creating a way for hospitals to easily access best practices for medication management, the Council hopes to improve error-prone medication management processes across the industry, leading to better outcomes for health care stakeholders.

"It is great to see Omnicell continue to assume a leadership role in addressing patient safety and supporting pharmacists and technicians in providing quality patient care and service," shares Stephen J. Allen, MS, FASHP, chief executive officer, ASHP Foundation. "The Top Ten Safety Best Practices developed by the Omnicell Medication Management Council is a prime example of its commitment to the pharmacy practitioners who must lead the inter-professional medication-use process." 

"While working as a DOP, I noticed that people often got lost in the interpretation and overabundance of safety guidelines," said Sara White, former president of ASHP, who is a Council member. "Rather than overwhelm health professionals with more guidelines and policies, the best practices lists are designed to pare medication management into manageable terms. We identified high-priority items that are not in place everywhere, so these are areas where organizations are still vulnerable."

About Omnicell

Since 1992, Omnicell (NASDAQ: OMCL) has been creating new efficiencies to improve patient care, anywhere it is delivered. Omnicell is a leading supplier of comprehensive automation and business analytics software for patient-centric medication and supply management across the entire health care continuum—from the acute care hospital setting to post-acute skilled nursing and long-term care facilities to the home.

More than 3,000 customers worldwide have utilized Omnicell Automation and Analytics solutions to increase operational efficiency, reduce errors, deliver actionable intelligence and improve patient safety. Omnicell Medication Adherence solutions, including its MTS Medication Technologies brand, provide innovative medication adherence packaging solutions to help reduce costly hospital readmissions. In addition, these solutions enable approximately 6,000 institutional and retail pharmacies worldwide to maintain high accuracy and quality standards in medication dispensing and administration while optimizing productivity and controlling costs.

For more information about Omnicell, Inc. please visit www.omnicell.com.

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SOURCE Omnicell, Inc.