Memorial Health, a multi-location healthcare system outside Columbus, Ohio, had a problem: Despite its strong commitment to immunizing its patients, the system ran into significant challenges in managing multiple vaccine programs across its many practice sites. Memorial’s leaders had looked at several possible solutions, but nothing gave them much confidence. Then they met with VaxCare.
From a Patchwork of Programs to One Simple System
Memorial Health manages numerous primary care and internal medicine practices across the region. And with that scale comes a lot of complexity.
Before VaxCare, each practice was managing its own vaccine program, which meant there were as many systems for organizing, purchasing, and tracking vaccines as there were practice locations. The result: Memorial Medical Group’s administrative team had no visibility into which practices were having issues with their program.
Once all its locations adopted VaxCare, the system admin had a closed-loop system that provided instant, real-time access to the data that’s important to keep its vaccine program running smoothly. And because the vaccine programs are now standardized across the practice ecosystem, the administrator has the insights needed to correct issues before they become expensive problems.
“As a system, we’re trying to be more mindful about our processes, numbers, and partner bills across all of our locations,” says Jessica Miller, Operations Manager, Memorial Medical Group. “With VaxCare, all I have to do is go into the portal to see what’s happening. It’s allowed us to reduce errors and make sure that our wasted doses are minimal.”
Eliminating Time-Consuming Inventory Management and Supply-Chain Bottlenecks
With its practices spread out across a fairly large region, Memorial Health had a particularly hard time managing inventory before VaxCare. Each practice had to order its vaccines through the system’s central pharmacy, and then a pharmacist would spend several hours doing inventory counts and getting the orders delivered to each practice.
But with VaxCare, all of that work went away. Because each practice is connected to VaxCare directly, if a location is running low on a vaccine, VaxCare sees it and automatically ships the right number of doses straight to the clinic without anyone having to do a thing.
It was so hard to keep up with our inventory before VaxCare. Now, we have up-to-date information that allows our teams to be proactive and reduce waste, all thanks to VaxCare.
— Anne M. Henry, Service Line Manager—Primary Care
Memorial Medical Group, Named 2019 Memorial Health Rookie of the Year
“It’s so simple,” says Nichole Huffman, Vaccine Coordinator at Memorial Primary Care | Urbana. “I’m not constantly having to keep on top of everything to see if we’re running low and then making the calls to the different companies to hunt down doses. With VaxCare, I know that when I need a vaccine, it will be here.”
Less Time Managing Vaccines, More Time Delivering Patient Care
Because Memorial Health has so many practices in its system, a few minutes chasing down a dose or a few minutes checking eligibility adds up quickly. That wasn’t just bad for its processes and budget; it took away valuable time and resources from its core commitment: delivering the best possible care to patients.
With VaxCare, Memorial saw an immediate simplification of its processes, including seamless integration with its EMR, real-time insight into vaccine eligibility, and a huge upgrade to its inventory control. This means nursing, pharmacy, and other support staff are now getting to focus on their jobs, not busy work.
“We have a busy and patient-focused office,” says Sarah Tasman, Practice Manager at Memorial Primary Care | Urbana. “We’ve got seven providers with patients rolling through every 20 minutes. So we just don’t have any time to waste. I love that VaxCare does all the work for you.”
And because the systems are now in alignment, it’s much faster and easier to train new staff on vaccine management protocols.
The Results
Since partnering with VaxCare, Memorial has seen its vaccine loss-and-waste rates decline—and its control over its vaccine management ecosystem soar. This has led to:
- Improved vaccine accountability, tracking, and inventory management
- Lowered costs and increased revenue gains
- 100% visibility into vaccine management across all clinics
- Rising vaccination rates
- Happier, more productive staff
Download the Memorial Health case study PDF here.
VaxCare transforms the way practices of all sizes manage vaccine inventory, billing, and insurance monitoring so you can spend more time on patient care.Want to learn more?
