Cardinal Health's Clinical Technologies and Services (CTS) division defines its competitive strategy in terms of its offerings. "We do not see ourselves competing with the traditional healthcare IT players, but see ourselves in a position to bring very unique solutions to the marketplace through quality care and best-in-class clinical operations systems," says Dave Schlotterbeck, Cardinal Health's CTS chairman and CEO.
Founded in 1971 by Robert Walter, Cardinal Health manufactures pharmaceuticals for nine out of the top 10 pharma companies, and produces or packages more than 500 million doses of pharmaceuticals, according to the company. Part of the publicly traded Fortune 20 company Cardinal Health, CTS is based in San Diego and has a number of large partners, including San Diego's Scripps Health and Sharp HealthCare. "We employ more pharmacists than any other commercial organization in the world," Schlotterbeck says.
Schlotterbeck's CTS group offers a network of medical information solutions which include informatics offerings through two main product lines, Alaris and Pyxis. Alaris offers IV medication and infusion therapy delivery systems, software applications and related monitoring equipment, Pyxis provides medication and supply dispensing systems to hospitals, nursing homes and other healthcare facilities. In addition, CTS offers an outsourced hospital pharmacy management program.
"When you combine what they do, you have a pretty good view of all of the medications that are delivered to a specific patient in an acute care hospital," he says. "We have the potential to be the data feed to virtually anyone's electronic medication and administration record in an acute care hospital because we have all of that data already generated by those two product lines."
According to Schlotterbeck, what sets the company apart is that it is clinically-based and has "very smart people with a lot of ideas and a lot of support from our corporate parent." R&D is also a priority, with $70 million in investment last year being followed by $100 million in the coming year.
