Case Study
Jupiter Medical Center
At a Glance
Organization
Jupiter Medical Center
Jupiter, Fla.
– 169 beds
– Not-for-profit
– Large orthopedics specialty
Solution Spotlight
– Clinical Procedure Resource
SolutionsTM
– Horizon Tissue ManagerTM
Critical Issues
– Meeting expanded regulatory
requirements
– Identifying tissue expiration
– Assuring patients of their safety
Results
– Compliance for regulatory
audits
– Proactive identification of tissue
expiration
– Accurate and complete tissue
records
– Quick traceability of implant
history and patient use
– Improved nursing productivity
– Tissue inventory expense savings
Meets Heightened Tissue Regulatory
Requirements to Assure Patient Safety
In the past, when patient safety
issues – such as contaminated
tissue – stirred debate in local
and national media, Jupiter
Medical Center (JMC) would
have struggled to quickly pull the
data needed to reassure its
patients that they had not been
affected. Now, after abandoning
paper records and implementing
Horizon Tissue ManagerTM from
McKesson, JMC can assure patients
of their safety and keep pace with
growing regulatory requirements.
In fact, JMC maintains complete
implant records and is fully
compliant with all regulations.
Challenges
JMC, a 169-bed, not-for-profit
hospital in Jupiter, Fla., has a large
orthopedics specialty requiring
a high-volume inventory of
tissue implants. With The Joint
Commission and FDA expanding
the regulations and management
requirements of tissue, JMC
needed to shed its manual
processes to comply.
JMC’s manual processes included
nurses recording tissue data in
loose-leaf notebooks that served
as the implant log. With this
method of management, JMC
could not track its true tissue
utilization. Inventory was often
reordered when adequate stock
was available. Additionally, the
manual processes made tracking
tissue expirations difficult, which
led to wasted inventory, lost
dollars and even expired tissue
ending up in the OR.
“When the father of a local OR
nurse was about to undergo surgery
for a nonhealing wound,” recalls
Beth Suriano, director of surgical
services at JMC, “the tissue came
into the OR before the circulator
determined that it had expired.
I knew things had to change.”
Answers
JMC is a longtime user of
McKesson’s clinical and financial
solutions. When Suriano discovered
Horizon Tissue Manager, a robust
yet simple software system, she
knew she had the perfect solution.
Horizon Tissue Manager is a
component of McKesson’s Clincial
Procedure Resource SolutionsTM,
which create a more efficient
workflow process to facilitate
reliable delivery of resources – such
as surgical trays and instruments,
tissue and device implants, medical
scopes and mobile medical equipment
and carts – to front-line caregivers.
Horizon Tissue Manager guides
users to document information
required for regulatory compliance
throughout each step in the tissue
management process. Additionally,
prompts and alerts notify staff if
required information is missing.
JMC’s tissue records are now
complete and ready for audits,
and ongoing quality assurance
is easily achieved.
Case Study
“We can now confidently
answer the question: ‘Is the
item you implanted in me
safe?’ With Horizon Tissue
Manager, the answer is: Yes.”
Beth Suriano
Director of Surgical Services
Jupiter Medical Center
McKesson Provider Technologies
5995 Windward Parkway
Alpharetta, GA 30005
http://www.mckesson.com
JMC uses Horizon Tissue Manager to
manage tissue inventory proactively.
With color-coded screens, alerts and
other tools to notify staff of item
expiration, Horizon Tissue Manager
gives JMC the confidence of sound
inventory.
JMC also benefits from the system’s
ability to identify soon-to-expire
inventory, which enables the
medical center to return soon-to-
expire consignment inventory
back to tissue banks or vendors
before expiration.
Suriano believes Horizon Tissue
Manager has saved JMC more than
$10,000 in the last year by either
eliminating expired inventory or
reducing reordering of unnecessary
inventory. “We have thousands of
items in the OR, and with our
manual processes we were never
sure that an item was even sitting
in the freezer — let alone about to
expire,” says Suriano. “With Horizon
Tissue Manager, everything we need
in regard to tissue implants –
patient identification, implanting
physician, procurement facility,
arrival and implant dates, expiration
of bone – is at our fingertips.”
Nurses, too, find the automated
system simplifies their daily
workflow. Horizon Tissue Manager
enables them to locate a tissue
record by scanning the tissue
bar code versus manually locating
a binder stored in a file cabinet
Copyright © 2009 McKesson Corporation and/or one of its subsidiaries. All rights reserved. STAR is a registered
trademark of McKesson Information Solutions LLC. Clinical Procedure Resource Solutions, Horizon Surgical
Manager and Horizon Tissue Manager are trademarks of McKesson Information Solutions LLC. All other
product or company names mentioned may be trademarks, service marks or registered trademarks of their
respective companies. PRT384-06/09
and then leafing through its pages
to find the tissue record. With the
integration of Horizon Tissue
Manager and STAR®, McKesson’s
hospital information system, dual
entry of patient information by
nursing staff is eliminated.
JMC is looking forward to further
enhancing its tissue management
process through the integration
between Horizon Tissue Manager
and Horizon Surgical ManagerTM,
McKesson’s surgical information
system. Duplicate data entry will
be eliminated and workflow will
be streamlined by sharing tissue
details during pre-, intra- and
post-operative care. Additionally,
staff time will be saved through
the seamless flow of information.
Results
Horizon Tissue Manager boosted
JMC’s confidence in its ability to
comply with all regulatory
requirements and successfully
complete The Joint Commission and
FDA audits. Nursing productivity
has improved due to the automated
workflow and data capture. And
JMC is realizing significant annual
savings in tissue inventory expense.
Most importantly, patient safety
is improved.
Suriano says, “We can now
confidently answer the question:
‘Is the item you implanted in me
safe?’ With Horizon Tissue Manager,
the answer is: Yes.”