What's in a name?: 'Wild' and 'Wonderful' boost pharmacy efforts

“Wild and Wonderful” has been used to describe West Virginia since the late 1960s, its origin ascribed to a nameless public relations consultant who was hired by then-governor Arch Moore.

The Pharmacy Department at WVU Medicine-WVU Hospitals recently tapped into this slogan to name two pieces of equipment that have helped its pharmacists significantly. While “wild” might not be an apt description of one of two Swisslog BoxPickers®, “wonderful” definitely fits the bill for both.

The BoxPickers have streamlined pharmacy processes throughout WVU Hospitals, while improving efficiency and security through a fully automated medication and storage retrieval process. It’s a big boost to an operation that receives around 7,500 orders for medications per day and dispenses nearly 13,000 per day, and nearly five million per year, according to Dan O’Neil, PharmD, Director of Pharmacy for WVU Medicine-WVU Hospitals.

“We use the BoxPickers for the majority of those orders,” O’Neil said. “With any technology you will eventually have some down times, but this has been a big help to our efficiency.”

Each BoxPicker holds around 50,000 items, including medications, but also supplies such as IV bags, gloves, and syringes. “Wild” holds medications that need to be kept at cool temperatures, while “Wonderful” holds the rest, each in stacks of secure drawers. To access the drawers, a pharmacy technician logs in, requests the medication or medications, and the BoxPicker retrieves and delivers the medications, which the tech then scans with a bar code reader. The storage and bar-code based system has multiple benefits, O’Neil said.

Before “Wild” and “Wonderful,” staff could have to search multiple types of automation and refrigerators to find correct medication. The bar codes minimizes human picking error and accurately track inventory, alerting staff when supplies are running low.

“There’s zero walking back and forth looking for medications,” O’Neil said, “and you’ve got a bar code-based inventory so it automatically maintains counts and expiration dates. The BoxPickers give you the dosage that’s soonest to expire to help eliminate waste.” The BoxPickers also track the inventory of stations on hospital floors that store and dispense common medications.