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Cardinal Health introduces new tool to help mail order pharmacies improve efficiency, cost effectiveness

New, patent-pending EZ Cart® system addresses key supply chain ‘pain points’ by dramatically simplifying process mail order pharmacies use to replenish, manage pharmaceutical products

DUBLIN, Ohio, November 3, 2009 — Cardinal Health recently introduced a new service that helps mail order pharmacies remove significant inefficiencies and unnecessary costs from the process of receiving and replenishing pharmaceutical products.
 
Mail order pharmacies usually receive thousands of pharmaceutical products each day, in hundreds of unorganized plastic bins. This process requires mail order pharmacies, which receive a large volume of pharmaceutical products on a daily basis, to allocate significant staff time to unload hundreds of plastic bins from delivery trucks, unpack, sort and scan thousands of individual products before putting them away in the right area within their facilities.
 
Developed in collaboration with its mail order customers, Cardinal Health’s new, patent-pending EZ Cart® program streamlines this process by pre-sorting pharmaceutical products into compartmentalized containers which are then placed into plastic bins. These bins are then placed onto mobile carts, organized by assigned locations at each customer site – before they arrive at the customer’s loading dock. Mail order pharmacies simply remove the carts from Cardinal Health delivery trucks and wheel them directly to the specific location within their facility where product is stored; eliminating multiple steps from the process of receiving and replenishing pharmaceutical products.
 
“Cardinal Health’s new EZ Cart® program helps our mail order customers improve their overall efficiency by streamlining the way they receive products and by freeing up their time to focus on meeting the needs of their members and clients,” said Law Burks, vice president of marketing management for Cardinal Health’s Alternate Care business. “By partnering with our customers to identify and create innovative solutions to key supply chain pain points like this, Cardinal Health continues to deliver on its commitment to improve the cost-effectiveness of health care.”
 
Key customer benefits that EZ Cart® delivers include:
  • Labor savings of up to 35-40% per receiving-and-inventory-replenishment employee, allowing participating companies to reallocate staffing resources to other critical tasks;
  • Fewer inventory ‘stock outs’ and increased fill rates because products get more quickly from the receiving dock to the location where they are stored.
  • Increased security due to EZ Cart® doors being secured with numbered seals.
  • Easier maneuverability within facility and less physical strain on employees when using the EZ Cart® compared to receiving products on a pallets.
“Cardinal Health’s EZ Cart® program provides a much easier and safer way to unload and move products around our facility than traditional pallets or forklifts, offers tighter security for controlled substances and saves our shipping and receiving staff a tremendous amount of time,” said Rick Miller, senior director of logistics and inventory for Prime Therapeutics. “The EZ Cart® has helped us create significant efficiencies with how we receive and replenish pharmaceutical products within our facilities, and is a great example of Prime Therapeutics’ commitment to finding innovative ways to more efficiently and effectively serve the needs of our clients and members.”
 
EZ Cart® is part of a broad array of value-added supply chain optimization services that Cardinal Health currently offers to help mail order pharmacies improve cost-effectiveness and efficiency. To learn more about EZ Cart® and other services that Cardinal Health offers to help its mail order customers improve cost-effectiveness, please visit www.cardinalhealth.com/mailorder. 
 
About Cardinal Health
Headquartered in Dublin, Ohio, Cardinal Health, Inc. (NYSE: CAH) is a Fortune 18 health care services company that improves the cost-effectiveness of health care. As the business behind health care, Cardinal Health helps pharmacies, hospitals and ambulatory care sites focus on patient care while reducing costs, improving efficiency and quality, and increasing profitability. As one of the largest health care companies in the world, Cardinal Health is an essential link in the health care supply chain, providing pharmaceuticals and medical products to more than 40,000 locations each day. The company is also a leading manufacturer of medical and surgical products, including gloves, surgical apparel and fluid management products. In addition, the company supports the growing diagnostic industry by supplying medical products to clinical laboratories and operating the nation’s largest network of radiopharmacies that dispense products to aid in the early diagnosis and treatment of disease. Cardinal Health employs more than 30,000 people worldwide. More information about the company may be found at cardinalhealth.com.

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