Ascend provides a combination of medication processing features and configuration options that are used by facilities that often require a blend of “traditional” inpatient and outpatient features. Furthermore, some types of businesses may vary in how they operate from one facility to another.  For example:

Some outpatient surgery centers want to schedule patient visits and reserve a bed for their patients.  Ambulatory infusion centers/suites usually want to reserve a specific “chair” for patient visits.  Some outpatient clinics want to schedule every medication dose with specific administration dates and times.  Many also want to print or view medication administration records which display these dosage dates/times for their nurses to use in documenting drug administration.   Ascend can handle these traditionally “inpatient-like” requirements quite easily and automatically, whereas most “pure” outpatient and retail pharmacy systems, and dedicated home infusion software programs, cannot do this.  Hann’s On Software also provides services to hospice centers, many of which operate as outpatient facilities, while others operate as inpatient facilities… Ascend  has them covered either way.  Some outpatient facilities want to display inpatient medication history on their patient profiles for medication reconciliation and/or historical purposes.  Ascend  and our Interface Engine can make it happen.

Many inpatient pharmacies want to be able to fill employee or emergency room prescriptions, and print outpatient labels for inpatient medications that are being taken home upon patient discharge.  Many psychiatric/behavioral health facilities want to label an inpatient medication for their patients to take with them on temporary “holidays”.  Most inpatient pharmacies want to maintain a profile that also can display/print their patient’s home medications, retail/OTC medications, and the like to meet medication reconciliation and continuum of care regulatory requirements.  Many inpatient facilities also have a need to do direct third-party electronic or paper billing for some situations.  Ascend can do all of this, whereas most other pure “inpatient pharmacy” vendors either can’t do it or they have you use completely separate software programs or modules to mitigate your needs!