Emergency department discharge dispensing
Discharge-to-fill in minutes, not hours, right inside the hospital. A VendRx unit in the emergency department releases pharmacist-verified medication to the patient before they leave, so there is no second stop at a pharmacy.
The prescription that never gets filled starts at discharge.
Between 20 and 30 percent of prescriptions are never filled after the patient leaves (Viswanathan et al., Annals of Internal Medicine, 2012). The barrier is not cost or refusal. It is the extra stop, and a unit inside the emergency department takes that stop away.
VendRx is a technology platform, not a pharmacy. Licensed pharmacists at partner pharmacies do the dispensing, and the VendRx unit securely stores and releases the verified medication, so ED staff never count or handle the medicine.
Of every ten prescriptions written, two to three are never filled.
Source: Viswanathan et al., Annals of Internal Medicine, 2012- Where
- Inside the emergency department
- Patient
- Birthdate and name confirmation at the unit
- Pharmacist
- Phone or video, English and Spanish
- Prescriptions
- Epic App Orchard and Surescripts
Three steps between the discharge desk and the door.
Before the patient reaches the unit, a licensed pharmacist at a partner pharmacy has reviewed and verified the prescription. ED staff never count or handle the medication.
Confirm who they are
The patient enters their birthdate and name on the touchscreen.
Review the prescription
The screen lists what is being released. A pharmacist is available by phone or video if the patient wants to talk.
Leave with it
The verified container is released into the bay, and the patient walks out with their medication.
More than 90,700 completed dispenses, zero documented wrong-medication releases.Every container is barcode-identified, and a container that cannot be verified cannot be released.
Emergency department questions
How does dispensing at ED discharge work?
Three steps in one visit. The prescription is routed through the hospital's existing workflow, including Epic and the Surescripts e-prescribing network. A licensed pharmacist reviews it and is available by phone or video when a consultation is required or the patient asks for one. The unit then releases the medication to the patient on site.
Can a patient discharged in the middle of the night get their medication?
Yes. The unit works whenever its host site is open, so in a 24-hour emergency department a patient discharged at 2 a.m. can leave with medication in hand. See after-hours dispensing.
Do ED nurses or staff have to count or handle the medication?
No. Dispensing is the licensed pharmacy act, done by a pharmacist. Vending is the secure storage and release of medication a pharmacist has already verified. VendRx handles the vending, so the clinical team never counts or handles the medicine.
How does VendRx make sure patients get the right medication?
Every container is identified by a data matrix barcode that encodes its NDC, lot number, expiration date and serial number. If a container cannot be verified, it cannot be released. Across more than 90,700 completed dispenses, VendRx has zero documented wrong-medication releases.
Does a VendRx unit store patient health information?
No. Patient information lives in the cloud-based prescription record and nothing is retained on the machine itself. The platform is built to be HIPAA compliant by design.
Bringing VendRx to your emergency department?
Talk with the VendRx team about discharge prescriptions, integration with your EHR and what installation involves.
Talk with the VendRx team