No matter where medications are in the hospital, they are the responsibility of pharmacy. Safe Label System helps bring pharmacy oversight to the fingertips of anyone preparing medications, anywhere they are prepared – and so much more.

What is Safe Label System

Codonics Safe Label System (SLS) utilizes barcode technology to read information from a drug container and electronically verify it against the pharmacy-approved drug database. When a drug is scanned on SLS, the clinician is immediately presented with audible and visual identification of the drug name and concentration in hand, providing an electronic “double-check” to ensure the medication that was selected is the intended medication. Prompts and pre-configured selection of diluents, total dose/total volume, and standard and non-standard concentrations are presented to the clinician to ensure safe, consistent preparations, fully compliant to TJC, ASA, USP, ASTM, ISO, ISMP and APSF standards. The system then automatically prints a fully compliant, easy-to-read, full-color label, eliminating the need for handwriting and ensuring safety and accuracy. Every prepared medication label contains a barcode for integration with your Epic AIMS (Anesthesia Information Management System) or EHR/CPOE at administration.

How Safe Label System Benefits Pharmacy

Codonics Safe Label System (SLS) helps reduce the use of costly prefilled syringes by empowering users to prepare medications in the pharmacy. SLS enables medications to be prepared and compliantly labeled in small or large batches and sent up to the floors, and integrates with RIVA robots to improve syringe labeling to meet compliance requirements for use in the perioperative environment. Every label produced by SLS includes the drug name, concentration, date and time of preparation, date and time of expiration, the preparer’s initials, any warnings about the drug and a barcode. This barcode can be scanned at the bedside for BCMA and integration with the patient’s EHR, and helps pharmacy with billing accuracy and 340B accountability.

Safe Label System also helps pharmacy when it’s deployed to other areas of the hospital. For example, in the perioperative environment, SLS helps to ensure labeling compliance and introduces a new level of safety and workflow efficiency for anesthesiologists. When integrated with automated drug carts (ADC), SLS can pass the NDC to the cart to automatically decrement the inventory in the cart. This process helps to improve charge capture and decrease stock outs, both of which save pharmacy time and enhance safety. Pharmacy can confidently rely on the electronic report from anesthesia and be assured of knowing that the cart has adequate inventory for all procedures.

SLS-WAVE, an accessory to Safe Label System that makes it a total solution, is a robust and highly accurate “hands-free” scanner that integrates with the electronic health record (EHR) in the OR. SLS-WAVE electronically passes the NDC data from the prepared syringe to the AIMS/EHR workspace. This improves billing accuracy, improves patient safety and – for the first time – extends BCMA to the operating room to close the loop.

A “Must” Have

SLS data analytics provides pharmacy and the EHR with the ability to maintain and manage inventory and ensure proper cost-accounting that can minimize diversion and assist in analyzing medication use per location and clinician. Users of SLS report that the SLS Data Analytics Tool provides a valuable means to avoid costs and capture lost revenues in cases where the lack of documented use (in areas like OR and ER) have previously been “black holes”. Additionally, users acknowledge that as alternative to increasing the use of more expensive commercially-prepared prefills, often limited in selection, hospital-prepared medications using SLS consistent with hospital-based rules and concentrations offers flexibility, putting the control in the hands of pharmacy to lower costs. Considering SLS’s impact on consistent best practices, adherence to accreditation requirements and compliancy, the value of the system to healthcare is confirmed everyday by SLS users and is being seen as key element to a standard of care for safe medication management. Join the hundreds of hospitals who have implemented Safe Label System technology and help us bring an end to preventable medication errors.