Pointclickcare Helps Arrow Senior Living Achieve A 50% Reduction In Order Management Time

Meeting occupancy goals and keeping residents safe is priority number one for operators, but before any of that happens, you have to get them in the door.

“Move-ins are necessary, but they are not always celebrated by direct care team members, likely due to the amount of time and work involved in the process,” says Derek Harris, Managing Director of Wellness Integration at St. Charles, Missouri-based Arrow Senior Living Management. “Even beyond just medication and orders management, there are so many other steps that go into completing that move-in. We want new residents to feel welcome in our communities. We never want our teams to think, ‘This will take eight hours to get through all the steps of the move-in process.’ That’s the last thing we want going through anyone’s mind.”

To reduce one aspect of move-in time, Arrow Senior Living started using Pharmacy Connect from PointClickCare in 2023. The health care technology platform has helped Arrow streamline medication management, thus reducing order management time by 50%, improving pharmacy collaboration and reducing medication errors. All of this is invaluable for nurses, especially at the point of move-in.

“Being able to help nurses use their time more effectively for a more efficient move-in helps to reduce the ‘sales versus wellness’ mentality,” Harris says. “It makes the team feel less burdened by the time they put into completing all those procedures for a move-in.”

Inside top challenges: helping nurses feel like nurses again

As a large senior living management organization responsible for developing and managing senior living communities across multiple U.S. states, Arrow Senior Living strives to deliver the highest quality of services for its residents across every domain of care. That work begins at move-in, including collaboration with its pharmacy partnerships.

The organization was experiencing delays in the order management process due to the need to communicate about orders that were waiting for clarification or additional details. Much of that work falls on nurses.

“People didn’t go to nursing school to sit behind a computer and be on the phone several times a day with the pharmacy trying to solve issues with orders,” says Harris, who is a nurse.

To address it, Arrow was looking for a solution to simplify and automate medication management processes, reducing the need to use multiple medication order workflows and cutting time spent calling their partner pharmacy. Harris and the team at Arrow needed to find a tool that would help staff increase time spent focusing on other resident needs.

“I think that nurses want to feel like nurses instead of medication technicians,” Harris says. “That’s what we’re trying to get back to. Let’s get everyone doing what they do best. Simplification and automation — that’s what’s going to get us there.”

The Solution: PointClickCare

To help their wellness staff optimize the value of their licenses while giving residents the best possible care and service, Arrow chose to implement PointClickCare Pharmacy Connect as a solution to inefficiencies in medication management. The benefits were as great as they were immediate. Pharmacy Connect provided seamless integration with Arrow’s preferred pharmacy, reduced multiple medication order workflows and offered an easy-to-use, role-based workspace and user interface.

“Nurses are already spending so much time passing meds, so giving them a solution like this where it’s easier to manage the orders is critical,” Harris says.

Pharmacy Connect enables wellness staff to easily track and confirm orders and provides medication-related notifications, including alerts for medication warnings. It also notifies the pharmacy when status changes occur, keeping records synchronized, and gives the wellness team visibility of resident med pass times.

For instance, if morning med pass starts at 7:30 but does not end until 10:30 a.m., staff members need to know that.

“That’s quite the time span there,” Harris says. “It’s almost bleeding into the lunchtime med pass. This platform really offers them the autonomy to figure out, what could I do better? Does it make sense to consolidate med passes? Why don’t we switch breakfast meds for a given resident to lunchtime if that’s feasible? It really allows them to use their critical thinking skills, and then they can solve those problems on their own.”

Improved efficiency, improved user experience: inside the numbers

Arrow’s wellness nursing staff quickly found that they were saving significant amounts of time during their routine medication management tasks. These improvements in medication workflows also mean that senior living organizations are supported in safe and compliant medication management.

“We’re basically cutting out time on both sides, whether it’s the pharmacy or us — just the overall management of the medication order has become so much faster for us,” Harris says.

Pharmacy Connect has helped Arrow’s wellness staff ensure that residents receive the correct and optimal medications for their needs at the right time, avoiding duplication or drug interactions, and keeping them safe, healthy, and happy. The results are huge:

• Over 50% savings in medication management staff time
• A 40% reduction in medication errors that were previously caused by delayed start times and lack of drug availability

“Now there’s more capability to edit orders as well,” Harris says. “I think that’s something that’s worth complimenting.”

PointClickCare Pharmacy Connect streamlines medication management by improving collaboration between senior living communities and their preferred pharmacy partners. To learn more about Pharmacy Connect and how it can deliver results like those achieved by Arrow Senior Living, reach out to a PointClickCare specialist today!

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