We’ve all been there: one weekend, you’re bitten by the home improvement bug. A few clicks later, your online cart is full of tools, and within minutes of checkout you can track your order from warehouse to doorstep.
As the above scenario illustrates, supply chain visibility has become an expected feature of the consumer experience. Yet for one of the most critical sectors — healthcare pharmacy — inventory transparency lags. Across the country, many health systems still struggle to know the location, quantity, and expiration dates of high-cost medications. Thus, the question remains: If we can track a shovel from coast to coast, why is it so challenging to track a medication across a health system?
Amid rising drug costs and persistence staffing concerns, hospitals need integrated pharmacy systems that provide full visibility to medication supply chain to meet evolving pressures. Centralized pharmacy models offer a way forward, helping health systems overcome staffing bottlenecks, optimize costs, and strengthen clinical outcomes — all while safeguarding a robust financial future.
Why Centralized Pharmacy is Gaining Momentum
Hospital pharmacy does not exist on an island. It is an integral branch of a health system’s operations. From IT to supply chain, management to clinical, multiple teams must work together to ensure patients receive the right medications at the right time. Centralized pharmacy solutions must account for these versatile workflows, and hospital pharmacy leaders are well-positioned to promote alignment. These leaders know the ins and outs of both medication management operations and patient care, and can advocate for flexible, tailored solutions that overcome workflow gaps while serving a health system’s unique needs.
But even the most aligned operations are being tested by mounting pressures. Facing a more than 10% rise in drug expenses, the nation’s top health systems have incurred millions in costs related to medication procurement and inventory management in this year alone. Additional headwinds are on the horizon, as inflation and more specialized medication therapies continue to drive up drug prices. At the same time, workforce shortages continue to strain pharmacy departments, making it harder to manage rising costs while ensuring safe, timely access to medications.
Widespread labor gaps compound these financial pressures, as over 80% of pharmacy directors report pharmacy technician shortages, according to the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists. And as hospital consolidation and expansion continue to trend upward, health systems face an increasingly competitive market.
In this environment, hospitals are embracing strategies designed to transform pharmacy operations. Because the pharmacy is one of the largest cost centers in the hospital, leaders are turning to technology to drive efficiency, eliminate silos, and elevate care. Centralized pharmacy models, which consolidate operations under one hub, support this transformation with integrated technology and expert oversight. Paired with automation, analytics, and EMR integration, centralized pharmacy operations help health systems:
- Lower costs and improve financial stability: By consolidating procurement and using real-time inventory data, hospitals can avoid wasteful stockpiling and costly emergency orders.
- Optimize workflows and optimize staff time: Central fill operations manage routine tasks such as packaging and delivery, freeing clinical pharmacists to focus on personalized medication management and patient education.
- Enable operational consistency and scalability: A central hub standardizes pharmacy protocols across hospitals, outpatient centers, and clinics. This model streamlines onboarding and ensures that new sites can deliver value quickly.
Setting the Groundwork for Success
System-wide connectivity is not an endeavor healthcare leaders must start from scratch. Technology integration is already widespread in pharmacy operations with 86% of teams using automated dispensing cabinets to date. Centralized pharmacy services meet the growing demand for more sophisticated capabilities, using robotics, AI, and advanced analytics to enhance operational efficiency (e.g., inventory management and demand forecasting) as well as clinical initiatives (e.g., drug monitoring and precision medicine). Most importantly, centralized pharmacies underscore the power of technology to augment — not eliminate — hospital pharmacy roles.
To gain organizational buy-in, pharmacy leaders must link new investments to measurable outcomes. This begins with identifying key pain points and setting baselines to measure efficacy. For example, improving medication supply chain visibility and optimizing usage metrics such as inventory waste, turnaround times, and emergency purchases provides insight into the direct impact on clinical and operational outcomes.
Pioneers of Pharmacy Transformation
Across the U.S., early adopters offer a roadmap to centralizing pharmacy services. For instance, Kentucky-based, Baptist Health exemplifies the power of a centralized pharmacy service center to drive long-term value. Facing labor constraints and system fragmentation, the full-spectrum health system identified a need to streamline pharmacy workflows and optimize medication dispensing across its network of nine hospitals. After establishing a centralized pharmacy hub which incorporated dispensing robotics, inventory analytics, and expert oversight, Baptist Health enhanced inventory transparency and decreased turnaround times. With new time savings, Baptist pharmacists are expanding patient-facing initiatives to meet the care needs of local communities.
In the case of Ballad Health, adopting dispensing technology at its flagship hospital
enabled the Tennessee-based health system to pool medication inventories driving
timely distribution and cost savings. Leveraging robotics for reduced manual handling, automated packaging, and remote verification, Ballad’s lean staff offers improved medication safety and quality care despite local pharmacy technician shortages.
Striving Toward an Autonomous Pharmacy Model
Beyond helping to alleviate market pressures, centralizing pharmacy services can help pave the way to achieving the industry-defined vision of the Autonomous Pharmacy vision. By expanding visibility, streamlining workflows, and automating dispensing, centralizing pharmacy services sets the foundation for a future where medications are managed and tracked with minimal manual intervention — supporting a new standard for accuracy, efficiency, and safety.
While every health system faces a unique mix of clinical, business, and operational considerations, one truth is universal: centralizing pharmacy operations isn’t just smart logistics. It’s a pivotal step toward the pharmacy of the future.
About Lani Bertrand
As Senior Director of Clinical Marketing and Thought Leadership at Omnicell, Lani Bertrand, RPh, works closely with customers and industry partners to advance the vision of the Autonomous Pharmacy and how technology-driven medication management can enhance clinical and operational outcomes. Lani brings a keen understanding of the healthcare environment, with extensive experience in business development, medical affairs, GPO, and consulting, to help identify opportunities to achieve clinical and financial goals. Her Pharmacy network and Medical Affairs engagements contribute broadly to provider education, practice advancement, and healthcare optimization.
