By Mary Beth Hislop

The El Camino Hospital Board of Directors unanimously approved spending up to $3.4 million for consultant services to optimize the hospital’s computerized pharmacy system.

Chief Medical Information Officer Eric Pifer said a team of analysts from Eclypsis would assess hospital needs and procedures for its Sunrise Clinical Manager software program, named ECHO – El Camino Hospital Online.

Pifer estimated the process would take analysts 15,870 hours to complete over 17 months. Consultants will make recommendations and implement training programs to improve workflows for ordering, verifying and dispensing medications; improve the hospital discharge process; decrease time for medications ordered “stat”; and determine which upgrade version of Sunshine software program is best for El Camino. The software upgrade is already included under El Camino’s prior contract with Eclypsis.

The ultimate goal is to reduce medical errors associated with medications, Pifer said.

In a U.S. Food and Drug Administration report, the American Hospital Association listed several causes for prescription errors, including incomplete patient information, no updated warnings on drugs and miscommunications involving poor handwriting, drugs with similar names, misplaced zeroes and decimal points and incorrect abbreviations.

The hospital has budgeted $6.6 million for pharmacy system upgrades for the current fiscal year. If consultants’ services begin immediately, Pifer said the project should be finished just as El Camino prepares to transition into new hospital facilities currently under construction.

Contact Mary Beth Hislop at marybethh@latc.com.