IV Compounding 2017
Assessing Vendor Offerings for IV Workflow Management and IV Robots

IV Workflow Management Solutions

For years, Baxter Healthcare's DoseEdge System was the only widely implemented solution for IV workflow management. However, other vendors—most notably MedKeeper—now have solutions challenging DoseEdge System's dominance. How do these vendors stack up when it comes to delivering strong technology, value, and guidance?

1. MedKeeper Presents as First Legitimate Competitor to Baxter Healthcare

KLAS Category Leader MedKeeper is the first competitor to Baxter Healthcare to be implemented in a significant number of organizations. As newer users of IV workflow technology, many MedKeeper customers are mastering the processes first before expanding the types of IVs made with the system, and they feel the system does very well at meeting their needs. Baxter Healthcare customers generally have more experience with the technology. This experience combined with recently released functionality for IV batches and more complex multi-ingredient IVs, like TPN solutions, allows Baxter users to achieve higher levels of throughput. Omnicell (Aesynt) currently has a very small customer base; these early users report significant struggles getting the system set up to compound everything they want.

2. MedKeeper Driving Highest Value; Baxter's Switch to Tiered Pricing Improving Value

At a lower price point than competitors, the MedKeeper system provides full functionality, and no interviewed customers report nickel-and-diming. These factors, combined with MedKeeper's flat monthly usage rate, lead to high customer satisfaction with the system's value. Baxter Healthcare's initial pricing model—in which customers are charged per dose—resulted in customers feeling penalized for using the product and unable to optimize it. However, Baxter is transitioning to a new flat-rate model, which has improved utilization and users' views of the system's value. Baxter customers do still express frustration with unexpected upgrade and functionality costs, and they would like more guidance and benchmarking on how to optimize the system. MedKeeper and Omnicell (Aesynt) customers receive such guidance, though this information has not yet resulted in as much improvement as hoped.

IV Robots

Users of IV robots report relatively high satisfaction given the low throughput, slow development, and lagging ROI they encounter. This seeming paradox between experience and satisfaction is not unusual in emerging markets, where forgiveness for unmet expectations and optimism for the future tend to be high as users determine the technology's actual capabilities.

3. ARxIUM and Omnicell Not Living Up to Throughput Expectations

Most ARxIUM and Omnicell (Aesynt) users KLAS interviewed are batching high volumes of common, previously outsourced drugs. Unable to compound a larger variety of medication types, these organizations are not hitting their initial throughput^† expectations. ARxIUM does a better job than Omnicell of setting expectations, so ARxIUM users have a clearer understanding up front that the main benefits will be patient- and employee-safety improvements rather than a dramatic increase in the number of drugs made in the pharmacy. These users still report a considerable gap but generally feel they are closer to being able to compound the expected number of medications.

4. Automation and Functionality Major Pain Points, Especially for Omnicell Users

Omnicell providers report frustration with the amount of monitoring their robot requires and with how often they must stop batches to fix things manually. They also say the robot cannot handle all the drug and container types they need. ARxIUM customers experience similar challenges, though to a lesser degree. The ARxIUM robot requires fewer manual interventions, and while glitches (like bags getting stuck) do happen, they are less frequent. Configuration is also a pain point for Omnicell and ARxIUM users, who feel efficiency is hampered when they have to rely on their vendor to configure the robot.

Writer
Elizabeth Pew

Designer
Jess Wallace-Simpson