Jennifer Mauldin Brings Her Passion for Clients to MedTurn
When’s she’s in the room, you can feel the positive energy and the excitement. When you talk to her, it is clear that she has a genuine love and passion for clients wanting to make sure that their needs are being met. When you meet her, you’ll find that she spends her time actively listening in order to respond to the challenges that clients are faced with every day.

We’re talking about the New Vice President, Client Management & Business Development at MedTurn- Jennifer Mauldin.

Jennifer is certainly a veteran when it comes to the Inmar organization, the parent company of Carolina Logistics and MedTurn. She has been a part of Inmar for over 15 years serving in various sales, service, operations and executive management positions. She is also currently the President of Carolina Services, where one of Carolina’s services is Prism, a billing and reconciliation service for third party pharmacy receivables. Her pharmacy experience with Prism is a perfect fit with the MedTurn organization. By utilizing the experience that Jennifer has gained through Prism, there are huge opportunities to create additional value for clients of MedTurn that can further optimize the pharmacist’s time and capital assets.

One of Jennifer’s key beliefs is that outsourcing can be a positive experience for our clients. She has watched the evolution of business outsourcing through her career at Inmar. First as companies’ outsourced coupon processing to most recently as pharmacies have outsourced receivables management in efforts to improve the productivity behind the counter so that pharmacists and technicians can have more time to focus on the customer. She has an in-depth understanding that the last thing that a pharmacy wants to do is to spend time on administrative work. “Our goal is to help our clients stay focused on their core, strategic business, said Jennifer. We do this by becoming an extension of our clients, aligning with their goals, and helping them be more successful by handling the non-core functions of their business.”

Note: In January 2004, Jennifer was voted as a “Rising Star” by the trade publication Chain Store Age. She was recognized in a special feature article 40 under 40 Rising Stars. Click here to read the article.

Passing the Pedigree in the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain
The rise of counterfeit drug cases opened by the FDA continue to rise each year - increasing by over 500% since 1997. This increase has caused several corrective actions to take place such as:

• Tougher state licensing of wholesalers
• Voluntary tightening of the supply chain
• Education, awareness, investigations and convictions
• Chain of custody or “pedigree” legislature and regulations

At the recent NACDS Supply Chain & Logistics Conference, the topic of pedigree was discussed in detail. The number of states that are implementing State Pedigree Legislation is continuing to increase. To date eleven states have passed Pedigree Legislation and another three have introduced the Pedigree Legislation. The most discussion centered on the recent Florida and California pedigree legislation that passed. Both of these require immediate action. While samples were not included in these pedigree requirements, all other goods including returns must follow these newly passed legislations.

Click here for a chart of the 2005-2006 State Pedigree Legislation.

Click here for a comparison of the Florida and California Pedigree Comparison.

What is pedigree anyway?

1. It is a certified, immutable record of a drugs complete chain of custody.
2. It must be specific and unambiguous.
3. It is required by laws and defined by regulations.
4. It has serious fines and penalties for non-compliance.

The data content of the pedigree must include source, transaction, ownership and certification of transaction authenticity information. The requirements don’t stop with data collection or the “initiate” step, it also includes steps to authenticate, validate, and certify. This includes actually signing to verify that all steps have been completed. The physical product must be matched against the documents and quarantined if any differences.

The FDA Counterfeit Drug Task Force is preparing a report scheduled to be made public in May. One thing is for certain, the State Pedigree Legislation will only to continue to increase. The variability by state will cause additional administrative tasks to manage the different requirements. Many expressed the need for Federal legislation to improve consistency and the ability to manage. However, no one seemed to know if this would happen in the near future.

MedTurn systems capture lot code information which helps with tracking of pedigree requirements.

Source: NACDS Supply Chain & Logistics presentation by Bruce Harder, Verisign.

Are We Ready for RFID?
Isn’t this supposed to be a simple Yes or No question? Apparently not! Based on the discussion and the information shared during recent presentations at the NACDS Supply Chain & Logistics Conference, there is much debate on who, what, and when regarding industry RFID readiness. One thing is for sure, the Pedigree Legislation, along with counterfeit product, inventory management, and the FDA, is certainly driving the movement to RFID.

One issue that is slowing the implementation is unresolved business and regulatory issues. This issue has many, many components that range from technology to data sharing. At a FDA Public Workshop held last Fall, the FDA indicated that they were not happy with the standards development process. This led to a Town Hall meeting in February with a panel format to address many of the key issues facing adoption of RFID and the creation of an E-Pedigree. Copies of presentations from this meeting are available at www.fda.gov/rfidmeeting.html.

Below is a summary of what was heard at the FDA Public Hearing:

• Industry : Technology is not yet ready for adoption
• Vendors: We are ready, the industry must invest
• Educators : Technology is not ready to accomplish serialization, RFID and pedigree
• States : We must act because the FDA hasn’t
• Bottom Line: All identified a need for a standardized approach to pedigree and corresponding data elements

A Task Force Report is expected in May 2006. In the meantime, other industry initiatives have been started. McKesson & Accenture started a JumpStart 1 called On Track. The goals of the program are to:

• Create a living laboratory across the supply chain to advance product safety
• Leverage the earnings & momentums of other industry leading companies to reduce costs and development time
• Gain real world experience with product serialization in a technolognostic environment
• Leverage learnings into practical commercial serialization installations
• Provide fact based information to the industry, the technology community and the policy maker

For more information about RFID in healthcare, contact Steve Perlowski.

* Source: NACDS Supply Chain & Logistics Presentation- “What’s Next with RFID in Healthcare? By Steve Perlowski
NACDS .

MedTurn Attending HDMA 2006 Distribution Management Conference & Technology Expo
MedTurn will be attending the upcoming HDMA 2006 Distribution Management Conference & Technology Expo. The conference will be held on June 7 - 10 in Phoenix, AZ. If you are planning to attend, please take time to meet with the following MedTurn representatives that will be at the Conference:

Steve Maki, Steve.Maki@inmar.com
Charlie Makowski, Charlie.Makowski@inmar.com

For more information on the conference visit http://www.healthcaredistribution.org/meetings/distribution.asp

Stratapult Earns the Custom Development Solutions Microsoft Competency
Stratapult, an Inmar company and leading provider of Web-enabled business solutions has once again attained Gold Certified status in the Microsoft Partner Program, this time with competencies in Business Process and Integration Solutions and Custom Development Solutions, recognizing Sratapult's expertise and total impact in the technology marketplace. Stratapult was one of only two Gold Partners in North Carolina to achieve this status. As a Gold Certified partner, Stratapult demonstrated expertise with Microsoft technologies and proven ability to meet customers' needs. Microsoft Gold Certified Partners receive a rich set of benefits, including access, training and support, giving them a competitive advantage in the marketplace. To read the complete press release click here.

Note: Stratapult provides in-house technical and business development support for CLS, CSCS and MedTurn

Need Help With an Unsaleables Challenge?
If so, contact us and let us work with you to develop a solution that best fits your needs. Contact Jennifer Mauldin or Sharon Joyner-Payne.