ER prescriptions at your fingertips

Until recently, patients discharged from the Cape Cod Hospital emergency department during the hours when most retail pharmacies are closed had to wait to fill their prescriptions until the following day or drive to the closest 24-hr pharmacy in Falmouth or Plymouth.

But, now, a new self-serve pharmacy option, InstyMeds, is available in the Hyannis hospital ER.

InstyMeds is an automated secure kiosk that looks like a vending machine and is located within the emergency center and is ready to dispense patients’ medications before they walk out the door.

The new service was launched to fill a gap in services for people leaving the ER after regular pharmacy business hours, said James Mangan, RPh, MBA, CPEL, executive director of pharmacy operations at Cape Cod Healthcare.

“Cape Cod Healthcare’s president and CEO Mike Lauf and I had been discussing what to do about after-hours prescriptions for patients who are seen in the emergency center and discharged when the local pharmacies are closed,” he said. “We realized we needed to do something, while thinking outside the box, to come up with a solution to help our patients.”

After doing much research and evaluating several options to find the best fit for patients, InstyMeds was chosen, said Mangan.

“It’s a novel technology that we are thrilled to bring to both the residents and visitors of Cape Cod,” he said. “It is here to meet the immediate needs of the emergency center patient and not to replace the retail pharmacy at Cape Cod Hospital. We know it won’t solve every problem, but anything we can do to provide the right care in the right location is what we want to do.”

Steps to Using InstyMeds

The following are the steps patients will take to fill their prescription at the InstyMeds machine, according to Mangan:

1. The emergency room provider will ask the patient if they want to use InstyMeds to fill their prescription, or if they would prefer a prescription to fill at their preferred pharmacy.
2. If the patient agrees to use InstyMeds, the emergency room provider will prescribe their medication using the InstyMeds list of medications in Epic (the hospital medical records system) and then send the prescription to InstyMeds.
3. The patient receives a voucher and a unique security code to use at the kiosk to get their medication.
4. Using the touchscreen at the dispenser, the patient enters their month and day of birth as well as the security code.
5. InstyMeds immediately bills the insurance company before dispensing the medication and the patient is responsible for paying their copay and a small service fee for using InstyMeds with a credit or debit card to receive their medication. The machine does not accept cash.
6. The medication is dispensed in a sealed container.
7. The medications in the dispenser are tailored to those commonly prescribed to ER patients which are typically for short-term use only. There are no refills, and no maintenance medications are available.
8. There is a telephone on the InstyMeds that connects directly with the InstyMeds help desk if the patient has any questions and a 24-hour InstyMeds’ pharmacist is also available.

“We’ve worked with Epic and the emergency center physicians to select the most commonly prescribed medications and the most commonly prescribed dosages,” said Mangan. “We have also worked with our partners at the Massachusetts Drug Control Program (DCP) and the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to make sure all of our licensure is appropriate, which it is,” he said.