UTMC Pharmacy Suppliers Discussion

Outpatient pharmacies are only open to University of Toledo patients, staff, and students

Combined, the 4 pharmacies carry around 1800 line items

UTMC Pharmacy Suppliers

There is a daily delivery from McKesson, a wholesaler

McKesson employs a group purchasing organization called Novation to negotiate with drug manufactures

Novation handles negotiating with brand and generic drug manufactures to enable a good price for their customers

Inpatient Inventory

McKesson truck arrives at 6 am every day. The crew scan in all inventory and verify that everything has been received. The barcodes on each item are scan to ensure that the product is compatible with the computer system. Then, the drugs are loaded into the Med Carousel. Meds then go to patients. At the end of the day, the Med Carousel generates a report that informs McKesson to re-order what is needed for the next day.

Narcotics are stored in a separate room and ordered in a different way

Outpatient Inventory

Same process as inpatient pharmacy except drugs are placed on shelves, not the carousel

Also QSI holds a perpetual inventory that generates a report daily, then is manually typed into McKesson

UTMC Pharmacy Database

System is called Connect RX

Used for only McKesson customers

UTMC installed this program in 2008

There is a training program that familiarizes new employees on managing the system

If there is an issue with the system, orders and inventory are manually placed

Inventory Issues

In the case when the pharmacy does not carry a drug that a patient needs, UTMC will contact neighboring hospitals

By Ohio Law, we cannot sell more than 5% of our business

UTMC can also get emergency shipments through McKesson, there is a higher fee and the shipment would be delivered within 2-3 hours, only 4 shipments allowed per month

McKesson is located in Livonia, Michigan

Drug Shortages

This is a huge problem; there is a list on the website org that outlines all the drug shortages in the U.S.

Potassium Phosphate injections for example, are only produced through 4 manufactures and are less profitable than generic brand products. There is a current drug shortage for this medication and has been recalled for glass contamination. The other manufacture that produces it is Hospira. The difficulty here is that Hospira produces a batch of drugs in a 3 month time frame. Therefore, if hospitals run out of this injection, there is no way Hospira could make more because it is working on a different batch of drugs. This results to physicians finding therapeutic equivalents that may not have the same effect as the first drug.

This also applies for oncology drugs which can be life threatening

Single Source Drugs

These are brand name drugs that Novation cannot negotiate with

Therefore, UTMC cannot get reduced pricing because it is a smaller institution

Specialty Pharmacies

There are certain new drugs that come out which UTMC cannot obtain from either the manufacture or Mckesson

These drug manufactures make contracts with specialty pharmacies, only allowing for those pharmacies to sell that drug

Therefore, patients will have to go directly to those pharmacies, UTMC loses business

McKesson Back Orders

Another issue UTMC deals with is back ordering for drugs

McKesson does not have a back ordering system which means that if UTMC placed an order for a drug and it was not on hand, they would have to keep placing that order until the drug is available

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