Medication Reconciliation: Medication Reconciliation Vendors

So my trip through Atlanta post Thanksgiving turned into an eight hour delay and a wonderful opportunity to witness frustration first hand.... and it wasn't pretty. Let's just say the airline employees should be considered for hazardous duty pay.

As mentioned in a previous post, I work for a company that specializes in developing clinical solutions for hospitals. We've been selling a medication reconciliation solution for almost 3 years which makes us the old man on the block and in my humble opinion, the best. Not so much because we have market share and a great solution but because we've already experienced the "gotchas" and "oh crap's" associated with deploying any new system. What is readily apparent as I go up against other vendors is their lack of understanding for what hospitals are trying to accomplish across the board. Vendors.... all Vendors, are trying hard to be the one stop shop for medication reconciliation when the truth is, it takes a great deal of buy in from all disciplines across the system. Anyone familiar with CPOE knows that it's not as easy as getting the docs to use it and med-rec has the same, albeit not as far reaching, symptoms of poor adoption and scope creep if not managed correctly. The blogger in me would like to tell you how to successfully implement a solution as an adjunct to your process but the salesman in me knows this is a public forum and let's face it, my bills don't get paid by writing this blog. Just to be fair, I will tell you there are a few viable solutions in the marketplace that everyone should be looking at. I'll list them in a moment. If you are in fact interested in a 3rd party solution to help you with medication reconciliation, make sure your check list is complete. Here's a few questions to ask.....

How will your system work with our current process
How customizable is your system to our needs
How many data sources to you obtain data from
How much does it cost
Can i speak to a reference
What can we expect to gain from this
Does the system work across the continuum

These may sound like logical questions but I'll be honest with you, i don't hear them enough when I'm out there selling. Now, here's a list of a few vendors you may want to consider