Real-time Interface Improves Inventory Management, Patient Safety

PLYMOUTH MEETING and PITTSBURGH, Penn. — Four Rivers Software Systems, a leading provider of Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) for the healthcare industry, and ECRI Institute, an independent nonprofit that researches the best approaches to improving patient care, announce the availability of new, real-time interfaces for their inventory management and hazard and recall alert applications.

This integration offers hospitals new interfaces between Four Rivers’ TMS® and ECRI Institute’s Universal Medical Device Nomenclature SystemTM (UMDNSTM), a standard international nomenclature and computer coding system for medical devices; Health Devices International Sourcebase manufacturer codes; and Alerts Tracker. Alerts Tracker is a Web-based, automated patient safety system for alert and recall management that offers efficient inventory management and more effective response to alerts and recalls.

Four Rivers’ TMS® and ECRI Institute’s UMDNS and Sourcebase manufacturer codes for easier, faster, and more accurate capital equipment inventory control.

More effective response to patient safety alerts and recalls: For healthcare facilities using both Alerts Tracker and TMS, the new interface simplifies the process of effectively responding to hazard and recall alerts. The interface enables users to establish whether equipment involved in a hazard or recall alert is in their inventories and identifies the steps for responding to the alert.

“Because these two products can now be integrated, users are able to look up ECRI Institute codes from within TMS via a real-time link to ECRI Institute’s Web data,” says James P. Keller, vice president, health technology evaluation and safety, ECRI Institute. “Healthcare facility clinical engineers will save a tremendous amount of time managing equipment. And importantly, they can reduce hospital risk and improve patient safety by more effectively responding to hazard and recall alerts.”

Alerts Tracker utilizes information from a number of sources, including ECRI Institute’s problem reporting investigations and medical device and drug recall information gathered from its extensive databases and resources, as well as from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, manufacturers, and other sources. The alerts, hazards, and action items are then electronically distributed directly to appropriate staff.

More efficient capital equipment inventory control: “Healthcare facilities need to standardize on device, model, and manufacturer codes to enable the most efficient use of their TMS database,” says Henry Wilde, chairman and chief executive officer, Four Rivers Software Systems. “Many of our customers have chosen ECRI Institute’s Universal Medical Device Nomenclature System and Sourcebase manufacturer codes for this purpose.”

Numerous healthcare organizations use TMS to manage capital equipment inventories, and to track and distribute associated maintenance activities. The new interface between TMS and ECRI Institute’s UMDNS and Health Devices International Sourcebase enables healthcare facilities to seamlessly access medical device and manufacturer codes directly from the TMS application. Prior to the integration, existing TMS and ECRI Institute subscribers were required to work between two applications to locate, enter, and update their inventories.

Source: ECRI Institute

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