CareFusion Unveils Next Generation of Its Flagship Pyxis® Medication Management Products

SAN DIEGO, Dec. 1, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- CareFusion today launched the Pyxis® Enterprise System (ES) platform, a new generation of its industry-leading automated dispensing systems that will enable hospital customers to simplify and standardize the medication management process, both within a single facility and across an entire health system.

To view the multimedia assets associated with this release, please visit: http://www.multivu.com/mnr/53365-carefusion-unveils-pyxis-automated-medication-dispensing-system

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20111201/MM14374 )

The new CareFusion Pyxis hardware and software brings key benefits to pharmacy, nursing and information technology (IT) departments including:

• Delivering significant reduction of nursing and pharmacy time to dispense and refill medications due to simpler, more efficient workflows;
• Eliminating the need for redundant data entry through direct synchronization with pharmacy, hospital, and identity management systems;
• Enabling consistent medication management practice and policies across the multiple hospitals in an integrated delivery network (IDN) through a single, scalable, browser accessible server; and
• Meeting key needs of the IT department with flexible deployment, security, backup and domain capabilities.

"For more than 20 years, Pyxis technologies have set the standard in dispensing to help clinicians deliver medication to patients efficiently and safely," said Rusty Frantz, senior vice president and general manager of Dispensing Technologies at CareFusion. "We've built an all-new dispensing platform to make it even easier to manage medications based on our customers' unique size, scope, capacity and clinical workflows, allowing them more time to focus on patient care."

Notable product releases on the ES platform are the Pyxis Enterprise Server, the Pyxis MedStation™ ES system and CareFusion Coordination Engine.

Pyxis Enterprise Server
With the Pyxis Enterprise Server, hospitals now only need to manage one dispensing system for the entire hospital or health network. This improvement allows pharmacies to manage just one formulary in the Pharmacy Information System (PIS) and cascade the data to the Pyxis Enterprise Server, permitting the PIS to serve as the single source for the formulary. In addition, user management can be centralized with Active Directory enabling single sign-on with standard hospital credentials. Both of these capabilities can help hospitals reduce data errors and eliminate redundant data entry for customers.

With flexible deployment options, the Pyxis Enterprise Server is able to scale to the needs of the smallest hospital to the largest IDN. IT can deploy a system that meets their needs with options that include software only, VMware, as well as a turnkey solution. The web-based architecture gives users access to the system from any hospital computer or tablet, without requiring a license for each user or having IT install additional software on hospital computers.

Pyxis MedStation ES
The Pyxis MedStation ES is the company's new automated medication dispensing system built on the ES platform using a robust, standardized set of hardware and software components.  The hardware features introduce a new standard in dispensing cabinet system supportability and reliability. The software platform enables simple, efficient workflows centered around the patient while improving pharmacy, nursing and staff clinical and medication management efficiencies. The user experience significantly reduces the number of steps in the key workflows, such as decreasing the steps to dispense a medication by half. 

"The Pyxis MedStation ES allows our pharmacists and technicians to manage the system from clinical areas or wherever their work takes them," said Bill Arrington, director of pharmacy at Stillwater Medical Center in Stillwater, Okla., which is the first limited release site for the Pyxis MedStation ES. "That now enables our staff to spend more time helping clinicians deliver the best and safest care to our patients."

HCA Wesley Medical Center, a hospital part of the HCA Health System, is also a Pyxis MedStation ES limited release site.

CareFusion Coordination Engine

The CareFusion Coordination Engine introduces a single, fault tolerant interface engine for all CareFusion products connected to a hospital's network. This product enables both hospitals and health systems to significantly reduce the number of interface connections that a customer needs to create and maintain for multiple dispensing systems, infusion pumps and ventilators within their facilities. For example, a health system with a single, consolidated formulary could deploy a single interface for all CareFusion devices across the multiple hospitals in their network.

CareFusion will demonstrate the new Pyxis ES platform, along with other CareFusion dispensing, infusion and analytic services, at the 2011 American Society for Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) Clinical Meeting and Exhibition being held Dec. 4-8 in New Orleans. Visit CareFusion at booth #2531.

About CareFusion

CareFusion (NYSE: CFN) is a global corporation serving the health care industry with products and services that help hospitals measurably improve the safety and quality of care. The company develops market-leading technologies including Alaris® infusion pumps, Pyxis® automated dispensing and patient identification systems, AVEA®, AirLife™ and LTV® series ventilation and respiratory products, ChloraPrep® skin prep products, MedMined™ services for data mining surveillance, Nicolet™ neurological monitoring and diagnostic products, V. Mueller® surgical instruments, and an extensive line of products that support interventional medicine. CareFusion employs more than 14,000 people across its global operations. More information may be found at www.carefusion.com.

SOURCE CareFusion