Technology tools supporting compounding cleanrooms now available for the US Hospitals

By Jim Jorgenson, RPH, MS, FASHP, CEO, Visante and Keith Streckenbach, President, Pharmacy Stars

While the COVID-19 virus situation dominates the issues list,  U.S. hospitals must continue to function and address all of the “normal” operational, compliance, financial, safety and quality challenges.  Consultants at Visante have an acute appreciation for the challenges our colleagues face and want to express our support and encourage while you tackle this unprecedented situation. We would also like you to know that we continue to work to assist our clients on all of the programs and services we normally provide to support continued compliance and development of high performance pharmacy services.  Out of an abundance of caution, we are modifying the delivery of our services to reduce travel and to optimize “virtual” and remote support of our clients to assist with minimizing any potential spread of the virus to their facilities while still providing the same level of support for normal operations.

Introducing Compounding 360 Compliance Tool and AR-360

One unique way that we can support you is in the area of compounding cleanrooms.  Together with our partner Pharmacy Stars, we recently built Pharmacy Stars Compounding 360 compliance tool for USP 797/800 and an augmented reality-training tool, AR-360.  A special 3D camera is provided to film our client’s clean rooms, which allows us to generate realistic, fully immersive experiences within the filmed cleanrooms. Often this includes embedded how-to videos and explainer text through the virtual space, thereby augmenting the experience.  Clients may structure an onboarding curriculum that guides the user through the space. Staff can use VR goggles, tablets, phones or their computers to “enter” their own clean room and train without having to actually interrupt workflows in the clean room. 

We are using this same technology now to be able to provide consultations on USP compliance without having to physically visit a site. This also allows us to review other elements of physical pharmacy operations without having to enter the facility.  While we recognize that “on-site visits to observe actual operations compared to SOPs remains the ‘gold standard’ for providing guidance, this enhanced virtual process allows the hospital personnel and the consultants to remain safe and minimize the risk of viral transmission during this time.” An example of the tool is available here.

Hand washing remains one of the best defenses against the spread of the virus.  Unfortunately, most people simply don’t wash their hands correctly to optimize the impact on the virus.  As part of the embedded training in Compounding360, we have expert videos and visual instructional aids on proper handwashing (as well as all other key training elements).  To support better hand washing, we have created an excerpt from this portion of Compounding 360 and are making it available to anyone that would like to use this in his or her organization to promote correct handwashing.  A link to the material can be accessed here.

We remain committed to the advancement of pharmacy services and the safe and effective delivery of care to all patients and will work to modify our approaches as needed to accommodate the unique challenges posed by COVID-19.