Health IT, Hospitals, Pharma, Startups

Pipeline RX takes telemedicine to hospital pharmacies

As telemedicine gains further traction in healthcare, it’s taking on increasingly diverse forms, and a […]

As telemedicine gains further traction in healthcare, it’s taking on increasingly diverse forms, and a San Francisco-based startup is looking to tap into what it sees as a potentially huge space: hospital pharmacies.

Pipeline RX, started four years by CEO Brian Roberts, has taken the approach and combined it with an outsourcing model from the staffing industry to make the drug delivery system in hospitals more efficient by filling labor shortages with remote pharmacists.

The idea, Roberts said, was inspired by teleradiolgoy, which takes medical images like CT scans and transmits them electronically to experts who can analyze and share ideas from thousands of miles away.

“We figured we could do the same with pharmacies because of the technology and create an environment and monitor prescriptions in the hospital and allocate it to home pharmacists,” he said, adding that it can both trim costs while ensuring adequate monitoring for patient safety.

Initially, Roberts, who previously worked in the staffing industry, said the company targeted rural and public hospitals, many of which lacked the personnel or had wide variations in busy hours within their pharmacies.

Earlier this year, Pipeline RX raised $5 million from strategic investor AMN Healthcare Services, Inc., and Roberts said additional talks are underway as the company plots further expansion. Additional investors and partners include CareFusion and the California Healthcare Foundation.

Now, larger health systems are inquiring, and Pipeline RX recently began offering a SaaS approach with its telepharmacy in an effort to allow bigger systems the ability to customize it to their specific needs and work flows.

Another fundraise is expected at some point in 2015, which will go toward a third phase of the business: building out an anayltics platform to capture and process data that becomes available through the company’s remote monitoring. That could include useful data such as geographical prescription patterns, different interventions that are taking place, safety measures and proper dosage amounts, among other areas.

“There’s a data opportunity here because we are privy to that transaction coming through,” Roberts said. “Hospitals and health systems can use that data.”

The recent improvements in telemedicine technology, along with hospitals’ push to better coordinate care and maximize efficiency, are driving the push, Roberts said, adding that demand has increased within a short timeframe among providers.

“Until a couple of years ago, (hospitals) were still faxing orders down to the basement,” he said. These days, it’s shifted to tablets by the bedside, with which a nurse practitioner or other provider can transmit and monitor the prescriptions with a pharmacist working from home over a HIPAA-compliant network.

It’s an attractive sell for pharmacists, as well, Roberts said, allowing them to have more flexible hours while saving the hospital money on labor costs. And since inpatient pharmacy work tends to fluctuate, hospitals also achieve added flexibility.

“There’s no reason why that employee needs to be sitting in the four walls of the hospital at periods when demand is fluctuating,” Roberts said. “We’re able to be flexible and offer the hospital a variable cost model.”

Savings are achieved in labor costs, and have ranged between 30 and 70 percent, depending on the hospitals, according to Roberts.

One pharmacists in San Francisco could remotely manage four to five hospitals across far flung regions in Northern California, say Shasta or Humboldt County or Lake Tahoe, during evening hours when prescription levels drop off, for example. That saves the hospitals from paying a pharmacist onsite $85 to $90 an hour, Roberts said.

It can also hep improve clinical outcomes by helping to reduce the amount of wait time a patient receives medications within the hospital setting, Roberts said.

“You may not get your medications approved within an hour in the hospital,” he said, adding that Pipeline RX’s average turnaround time is seven minutes compared to an industry standard of 20 minutes.

Roberts sees vast potential with telepharmacy, pointing to post-discharge medication monitoring from skilled nursing facilities and nursing homes, retail clinics and other care centers as possible avenues, particularly as hospitals look to prevent readmission rates.

“Anywhere you need to have a prescription verification, that’s where this can be plugged into,” he said.

Currently, Pipeline RX has about 150 total employees – about 120 of which are telepharmacists – and it operates in 27 states. More than 30 hospitals have adopted its SaaS approach, while more than 200 hospitals, ranging from 25-bed critical access facilities to academic medical centers – have used the company’s pharmacists.

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