BD Targets Opioid Control IV Safety Med Availability

Editor's note: An earlier version of this article incorrectly rendered a quote in the last paragraph. The article has been updated.

With the goal of helping to advance the safe and efficient management of medication across the continuum of care, BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company) has unveiled the establishment of the BD Institute for Medication Management Excellence.

According to the company, as part of its Center for Safety and Clinical Excellence, the initiative is intended to “offer a collaborative environment for customers and industry thought leaders to engage in insightful research and best practices to directly impact patient safety.”

BD said that the goal of the institute is to identify and support advances in medication management that will help improve the safety and decrease the cost of health care. This can be done through encouraging transformational ways of thinking, new methods, processes, guidelines, and best practices to create a foundation for measurable improvements.

“Pharmacy is facing a lot of demands right now. We want to facilitate that dialogue around innovation with our customers, specifically looking at medication management and what we can do to help hospitals to work smarter to make medication management more efficient,” said David Swenson, Vice President, Clinical Strategy, Medical Systems and Medical Affairs for BD.

Initially, the institute will be focused on three core initiatives:

Opioid control and management: BD is collaborating with national health care organizations and health systems to address clinical and operational medication management and drug diversion issues in acute care settings to find solutions that health care organizations can use to address the rising opioid epidemic.

End-to-end IV safety: In collaboration with national experts and IV safety organizations, BD is working to improve comprehensive IV infusion safety through the entire process from initial compounding to administration at the patient’s bedside.

 Medication availability: BD is working with medication management experts to ensure that the right medication is available when and where needed to improve patient outcomes and cost-efficiencies across the continuum of care.

At the ASHP Midyear Clinical Meeting in December 2016, BD demonstrated an enhanced technology platform designed to eliminate communication gaps between disparate technologies and help optimize the entire medication management process. BD also showcased an enhanced technology platform designed to do the same for the MTM process. This platform has integrated software capabilities that include analytics around inventory management, software applications to drive workflow efficiencies, and benchmarking capabilities.

On the opioid control and management issue, Swenson, citing data from the IMS Health National Prescription Audit, said that there are 650,000 opioid prescriptions dispensed daily in the United States.

“We are having a crisis around opioids and that extends into the acute care environment as well. We are looking at ways we can innovate with our customers by working closely with the electronic medical records (EMR) providers to create a tighter network of monitoring and managing the controlled drugs,” said Swenson.