The Medical University of South Carolina

When Frank Giuliano joined MUSC in October 2021, he brought several years of retail pharmacy experience but had never worked in health system pharmacy or supply chain.

Less than one year after joining MUSC’s retail pharmacy department, Giuliano assumed the role of procurement lead for MUSC’s Pharmacy Distribution Center where his responsibilities included drug purchase surveillance, contract and price management, medication procurement, and distribution of medications between multiple MUSC facilities across South Carolina.

Giuliano needed to get up to speed quickly as pharmacy staff and patients depend on this work to ensure the health system has the medications it needs. Efficient tools and high-level support would be essential for taking on this new challenge.

Fortunately, there was a solution in place. QuicksortRx was developed and implemented by MUSC in 2018 to drive better pharmacy procurement decisions and reduce medication expenses.

QuicksortRx empowers Giuliano to instantly assess medication price, availability, and purchasing trends across multiple facilities and their many account classes — Group Purchasing Organization (GPO) contracted prices, 340b program prices, and Wholesale Acquisition Cost (WAC). This allows Giuliano to find the most cost-effective products to standardize.

What Giuliano finds particularly helpful is the ease with which he can identify these kinds of opportunities. “I’m not the most technically savvy individual, but I have no problem working in the platform. Once you get familiar with the layout, how the platform works, and how to make changes, it’s easy to do what you want to do.”

If Giuliano does have questions, he knows he can always reach the QuicksortRx team. “I can’t speak highly enough about them. They helped me transition into this position and are always there to help me with anything.”

QuicksortRx’s expert support continues to team up with Giuliano regularly to identify cost savings and implement workflow improvements. Giuliano shared two examples of how the platform has made a substantial impact on the health system’s bottom line.

Prevent Surplus Stock

During routine surveillance with QuicksortRx, Giuliano noticed MUSC was purchasing abnormal quantities of a vaccine for use in the emergency room. Giuliano worked with MUSC team members to determine that the quantity of the vaccine in stock was not updated as orders arrived. “Had QuicksortRx not brought this issue to our attention, those daily orders would have continued, presumably until the department ran out of space to store the vaccine,” Giuliano says.

Despite the fact that QuicksortRx has been operating at MUSC for over five years, it continues to deliver significant savings to the health system.