Better Meds and BD have partnered to integrate BD Pyxis automated dispensing cabinets (ADC) with Better Meds’ electronic prescribing and medicines administration (ePMA) system. The partnership will ensure safer and more efficient medication administration than manual processes on hospital wards, in collaboration with University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust.
Hospitals increasingly rely on ePMA systems like Better Meds to streamline medication prescribing and administration. However, retrieving the correct medications from storage often remains a manual process for nurses, which can introduce delays and errors.
By integrating Better Meds ePMA with BD Pyxis ADCs, medication prescriptions will be automatically transmitted to the ADC system, reducing manual selection and ensuring a more patient-centric approach. This integration leverages NHS Digital’s Dose Syntax Implementation Guidance, enabling seamless data exchange and supporting a more closed-loop medication administration process.
Through this partnership, BD Pyxis ADC’s and Better Meds will provide:
- Seamless ePMA-ADC integration: Prescriptions from Better Meds will be automatically transferred to BD Pyxis ADCs, allowing nurses to access real-time patient medication lists directly from the dispensing cabinet.
- Enhanced medication safety: The system highlights the prescribed dose, strength, route, and schedule, ensuring nurses select the correct medication and helping reduce the risk of errors.
- Improved efficiency: The ADC directs nurses to the exact location of the required medication, saving time and enhancing workflow efficiency.
- Compliance with healthcare standards: The solution adheres to DAPB 40131 interoperability standards, ensuring seamless data exchange between systems.
Božidarka Radović, Better Meds Product Director, said: “At Better Meds, our mission is to make medication management safer for patients and more efficient for healthcare professionals. By integrating our ePMA system with BD Pyxis automated dispensing cabinets, we are reducing the manual steps involved in medication administration, giving nurses quicker and safer access to prescribed medications. This means fewer interruptions, reduced risk of selection errors, and more time for direct patient care. Our partnership with BD Pyxis is another step toward creating a seamless, interoperable medication management process that truly supports clinicians in their daily work.”
This integration will be implemented at University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust to enhance controlled medication management within hospital wards. Prescribers and pharmacists will continue their existing workflows in Better Meds, with all prescription updates automatically reflected in BD Pyxis ADCs. Nurses and administrators will benefit from a simplified medication retrieval process, ensuring greater accuracy and helping reduce the risk of missed or duplicate doses.
Nancy West, Director Northern Hub, MMS BD, said: “Our mission is to enable healthcare organisations to unlock efficiencies through streamlining Connected Medication Management (CMM) pathway - a technology-driven approach to automate, streamline and digitalise all steps of medication management in a healthcare setting. Through the close supplier collaboration between BD and Better Meds, we have achieved integration between the Better Meds ePMA system and the BD Pyxis Automated Dispensing Cabinets. The result is an end-to-end prescribing data flow from the ePMA to the dispensing cabinets.
“Unlocking data flows through successful interoperability between systems ensures seamless medication handling processes for the nursing staff, from patient-specific selection of medicines to assurance of maintaining medication safety to the point of medicine administration. This ensures the FIVE rights (Rs) of medicines administration: right person, right medicine, right dose, right route, right time.2 With patient safety as the core motivator for this type of integration between two technologies, we look forward to seeing the benefit gains for both patients and hospital staff at the University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust.”
References
1. DAPB4013: Medicine and Allergy/Intolerance Data Transfer, September 2021 - https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/information-standards/governance/latest-activity/standards-and-collections/dapb4013-medicine-and-allergy-intolerance-data-transfer - Last accessed 01/06/2025
2. Tyreman C – How to avoid drug errors: The five “rights” of medicines administration, September 2010 - https://www.nursingtimes.net/medicine-management/how-to-avoid-drug-errors-the-five-rights-of-medicines-administration-04-09-2010/?msgid=124035 - Last accessed 01/06/2025
