By Patrick Parker, MSP, RPh, and Jocelyn Kennedy, CPhT

Bar Coding Software

THE PHARMACY AT LAWRENCE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL, A 176-BED, NON-PROFIT city hospital in Lawrence, Kansas, provides 24-hour services, and dispenses about one million doses per year. After using the MILT by MediDose software for years, in 2004, we upgraded to the latest version, MILT 2.0, because we wanted to take advantage of MILT 2.0’s advanced reporting and bar coding features as our hospital moves towards bar coded bedside medication administration.

Our technicians start our packaging process by scanning a stock bottle’s bar code at the MILT 2.0 workstation, or by typing its NDC number into the PC that runs the software. Based on that NDC number, MILT 2.0 populates its fields, and we can then input other pertinent information, like expiration dates and lot numbers, to the appropriate fields. Using the information entered, MILT 2.0 enables us to print dose-specific, bar coded, laser-printer labels, which we place on manually filled unit-dose blisters. Once the packages are filled and labeled, the technician places them in a bin for verification by a pharmacist.

MILT 2.0 has become an important part of our bar coded bedside medication administration initiative. We are now building the systems – such as bar coding in the pharmacy – to support that initiative. While we plan to purchase as many pre-bar coded unit dose products as possible, we project that 60% of our stock will not be available as such. MILT 2.0 will allow us to bar code those medications in the pharmacy, and we plan to use the program as our primary bar coding system. For pharmacies that use tabletop unit dose packagers, MILT 2.0 can also serve as an excellent back-up system.

MILT 2.0 is not only inexpensive, but it has also been relatively easy for our technicians to learn and to use. We also appreciate MILT 2.0’s reporting and logging capabilities. With 2,300 different products on our shelves, running an expiration-date report helps us avoid rifling through our storage area for expired drugs. In addition, the software logs which pharmacist signed off on a particular batch of packaged drugs. These electronic summary reports are much easier to read and analyze than the paper logs we were using before the MILT 2.0 upgrade. Because of its ease of use, the MILT 2.0 makes quality assurance an easier task for managers.

MILT 2.0 also provides many of the safety features of more expensive packaging systems. The program requires pharmacists to indicate, line by line, that the bar codes and other information on the labels have printed properly. That double check in the system enables us to catch minor errors that might have otherwise slipped through the cracks. In addition, MILT 2.0 generates error reports, which will allow us to discover the sources of the problems. For example, if the reports show a member of our personnel is consistently making the same errors, we could speak with him or her about the pattern to rectify the problem. We are also able to lock fields that are consistently being changed in an incorrect manner. For instance, if something is typically misspelled or if a dose concentration is consistently entered incorrectly, we can correct it once, lock it, and prevent it from happening again.

Ultimately, we have found MILT 2.0 to be a valuable, inexpensive, and easy-to-use tool, with many built-in safety features. In addition, MediDose has been kind enough to develop some additional customized programming and reporting capabilities for us, and they are working on adding two-dimensional bar coding capabilities to the software. The company has been great to work with.

Patrick Parker, MSP, RPh, has worked for Lawrence Memorial Hospital in Lawrence, Kansas, for 21 years. He currently serves as the director of pharmacy and IV therapy.
Jocelyn Kennedy, CPhT, is the chief of technicians in the pharmacy department of Lawrence Memorial Hospital, where she has worked for nearly 14 years.