Saturday, November 20, 2004

Swisslog and Cardinal Health Form Strategic Partnership

Swisslog and Cardinal Health Form Strategic Partnership

Swisslog, a leading provider of automated materials transport and pharmacy automation solutions for hospitals, today announced that it has formed a co-marketing agreement with Cardinal Health, a leading healthcare services company. The new agreement will allow Swisslog and Cardinal Health to work together to help hospitals improve efficiency, reduce medication errors and manage the medication inventory process.

Denver, CO (PRWEB) October 26, 2010

Swisslog, a leading provider of automated materials transport and pharmacy automation solutions for hospitals, today announced that it has formed a co-marketing agreement with Cardinal Health, a leading healthcare services company. The new agreement will allow Swisslog and Cardinal Health to work together to help hospitals improve efficiency, reduce medication errors and manage the medication inventory process.

As part of this agreement, Cardinal Health will integrate its distribution services with Swisslog's PillPick, BoxPicker, ATP High-Speed Packagers, Inventory Management Software and Beacon Pick-To-Light Shelving, as additional solutions to improve safety, workflow and optimize the hospital pharmacy supply chain. As a result, Cardinal Health can now provide hospitals with a closed-loop automated inventory system for medication management, from loading dock through the pharmacy to the patient bedside.

PillPick is a fully automated robot that packages and barcodes oral solids, ampoules and cups into unit doses, and stores and dispenses on demand. The partnership with Cardinal Health will allow pharmacies supplied by Cardinal to seamlessly package unit doses. When requested, the unit doses are assembled on a PickRing for dispensing. Swisslog's patented PickRing technology, which includes patient-specific medication information, is the safest and most efficient order fulfillment solution on the market. PillPick significantly reduces the chance of dosing errors by eliminating human touch.

BoxPicker, a safer and faster alternative to carousel technology, is a high-density, automated medication storage and retrieval system. BoxPicker offers high-speed picking and secure access for sensitive medications and narcotics. It is available in a dual temperature module, enabling it to store refrigerated and non-refrigerated medications in the same machine. Cardinal Health customers utilizing the Cold Chain® refrigerated medication delivery process will be able to transfer temperature-sensitive medication directly into BoxPicker for secure storage.

The compact ATP Series packages and barcodes fast-moving oral solids. The bar-coded unit and multi-dose packages, which can easily be integrated with BoxPicker and Inventory Management Software, result in increased patient safety and more efficient cart-fill processes.

Beacon Pick-To-Light Shelving for inpatient and outpatient hospital pharmacies ensures customer safety in a compact storage and retrieval solution via a unique pick-to-light system. Beacon stores more drugs in less space, while reducing labor, inventory costs and customer wait time. It organizes medications by activity and guides picking and stocking with innovative light direction and barcode verification technology.

Swisslog's Inventory Management Software (IMS) optimizes pharmacy inventory by providing a "perpetual inventory" approach specifically designed for hospital medication flow. IMS automates reordering of drugs directly with Cardinal. All inventory movements from the warehouse to dispensing, stock levels, remote inventory, and replenishment orders are recorded and tracked through integration with Cardinal distribution.

"Swisslog's products and our agreement with Cardinal Health will allow our healthcare customers to improve patient safety and pharmacy efficiency," said Ben Hinnen, vice president of Swisslog's Automated Drug Management Systems business unit. "This is a natural step in Swisslog's effort to provide customers with complete pharmacy automation solutions."

Swisslog Healthcare Solutions is the leading supplier of logistics automation solutions for healthcare facilities. Swisslog has installed automated materials transport and pharmacy automation systems in more than 3,000 hospitals around the world, including more than 2,000 in North America. Swisslog offers total systems design, manufacturing, installation and customer support providing a complete supply-chain management approach to logistics challenges of hospitals. The North American division of Swisslog Healthcare Solutions is based in Denver, CO.

About Swisslog
Swisslog is a global provider of integrated logistics solutions for warehouses, distribution centers and hospitals. Its comprehensive services portfolio ranges from building complex warehouses and distribution centers to implementing Swisslog's own software to intra-company logistics solutions for hospitals.

Swisslog's solutions optimize customers' production, logistics and distribution processes in order to increase flexibility, responsiveness and quality of service while minimizing logistics costs. With years of experience in the development and implementation of integrated logistics solutions, Swisslog provides the expertise that customers in more than 50 countries around the world rely on.

Headquartered in Buchs/Aarau, Switzerland, Swisslog currently employs over 2 000 staff in about 20 countries worldwide. The group's parent company, Swisslog Holding AG, is listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange (security number: 1232462, Telekurs: SLOG, Reuters: SLOG. S). For more information, visit http://www. swisslog. com.

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