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Cutting Pharmacy Waste: Establishing a Process to Streamline Excess Medication Sharing
Thursday April 24, 2025 3:40pm - 3:55pm EDT
Olympia 1
Cutting Pharmacy Waste: Establishing a Process to Streamline Excess Medication Sharing
JingJie Yu, Abbi Rowe
 AdventHealth Orlando, Orlando FL 
Objective: (1) To evaluate the current medication-sharing process, (2) identify, implement, and assess a new and more efficient process to facilitate medication-sharing. 
Self-assessment: 
Background: Poor management of medication inventory can lead to shortages, and waste and is associated with increased pharmacy costs. The nine campuses across AdventHealth’s Central Florida Division (CFD) can easily share medications due to regulatory allowances, internal courier services, and proximal geography. Pharmacy buyers currently use a Microsoft Teams chat to attempt medication transfers. This method lacks an organized framework to ensure all necessary information is provided to effectively facilitate sharing excess inventory. 
Methodology: This is a multi-centered, pre-test and post-test comparative study of medication transfer attempts between hospital campuses in CFD. The pre-intervention period started from March 1, 2024, to August 31, 2024. The post-intervention takes place from February 1, 2025, to March 31, 2025. T-test or Wilcoxon Signed Rank test will be used for statistical analysis. All medication transfer attempts were included in the study. Non-medication transfers, supply transfers, and transfers outside of the CFD campuses were excluded. This study’s primary outcome is the number of successful medication transfer attempts. Secondary outcomes included cost avoidance and total volume of medication waste reduction. 
Results: In the pre-test period, 8 out of 9 campuses attempted a medication transfer via the designated Teams Chat. There were 83 attempted transfers representing a total of 924 individual units and a total acquisition cost of $64,444.93. Of the 83 attempts only 3 were successfully completed with just 2 of these having confirmed administrations. The total acquisition cost of the completed transfers was $7,404.30. Nine of the transfer attempts were missing key pieces of information to evaluate the feasibility of use at another campus. Of these, 1 was missing the medication strength, 6 were missing the quality available for transfer and 3 were missing product expiration dates. Post-test results are in progress.
Conclusion: The historic process of sharing excess medication inventory across the division has resulted in minimal successful transfers. During the pre-intervention period, most campuses made relatively few transfer attempts. A new process utilizing a standardized Microsoft Form with required fields was implemented to help facilitate transfer attempts. Education on the new process and ideal medication transfer targets were provided to pilot campus buyers and operations managers. Post-test results are in progress. Transfer attempts lacking the necessary information to assess the feasibility were most commonly missing information on the quality of excess medication available for transfer. This method hindered the effectiveness of medication transfers. 
Moderators
avatar for Saumil Vaghela

Saumil Vaghela

Clinical Pharmacy Manager, PGY1 RPD, CaroMont Health
Clinical pharmacy manager, EM background, RPD, adjunct faculty. Supporting those who provide patient-centered, evidence-based care and facilitating the classroom-to-bedside transition for new practitioners.
Presenters
JY

JingJie Yu

PGY1 resident, AdventHealth Orlando
JingJie is a current PGY1 resident at AdventHealth Orlando.
Evaluators
avatar for Michael Saxon

Michael Saxon

Clinical Pharmacy Manager, Northside Hospital
I am the Clinical Manager of Pharmacy Services and outgoing PGY1 Residency Program Director at Northside Hospital Atlanta. I attended Mercer University for my pre-pharmacy courses and graduated from the University of Georgia College of Pharmacy in 2015. I completed a PGY1 Pharmacy... Read More →
Thursday April 24, 2025 3:40pm - 3:55pm EDT
Olympia 1
  Administration (ADM), AdventHealth Orlando
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