It’s Time to Make Life-Saving Crash Carts More Available, Easier to Use

Since 1971, Washington-based HealthFirst has been providing dental and medical offices cost-effective solutions for medical emergency preparedness, infection control, medical waste, and regulatory compliance. HealthFirst offers an automated medication replenishment system for crash carts and crash kits that contain emergency medication and equipment for life support protocols in a patient medical emergency.

While crash carts are always found in hospitals and acute care facilities, Lynda points out that medical emergencies happen everywhere. “Crashes don’t only happen to patients in hospitals,” Lynda said. “They can happen anywhere at any time. Parking lot, shopping mall, aircraft… crash carts are a necessity in hospitals but I would argue they’re a necessity elsewhere – especially in all medical and dental practices.”

While a hospital may have a crash cart routinely restocked and checked by an on-site pharmacist, a smaller, non-acute care facility may have a smaller, less-used crash kit containing similar medications. These medications often expire before they are used. They can also be prone to manufacturer recalls. Manually checking those crash kits takes a lot of manual time and labor, something that can be solved with technology.

“You can log onto OnTraq, for example, and see all of your expiration dates and your lot numbers in case of a national recall, but it also helps eliminate human error,” Lynda said. “Plus, OnTraq’s proprietary automatic replenishment system will monitor those expiration dates and automatically send a replacement medication prior to expiration.”