Integrating pharmacy systems for better patient care

Modern pharmacies face a plethora of opportunities to move away from being primarily dispensers of medication, to a more central part of community healthcare.

Initiatives like Pharmacy First not only allow community pharmacists to provide more comprehensive and personalised levels of care, but also benefit from additional revenue opportunities that can relieve some of the stresses from reducing funds, fluctuating prices and issues around reimbursements.

However, to take advantage of these opportunities, a rethink is needed on how pharmacists can adapt how they work in order to create the time and open up the relevant resources to deliver these additional services.

In this blog we’ll demonstrate how integrating pharmacy systems can create a better environment for improving patient care.

Before you get into the blog, watch episode one of our new docuseries "The Game Changers of Community Pharmacy" by clicking the image below

The challenges to overcome in pharmacy operations

“Traditional” pharmacy operations have relied heavily on laborious, manual processes and checks to dispense medications. These processes can be incredibly time-consuming to reduce the risks of errors, but this time reduces productivity and time for other, more patient focused, activities.

As well as being inefficient, manual processes fail to remove the high risk of dispensing incorrect medications with around 16% of medication errors in the UK thought to come from dispensing errors.

Challenges also exist in ensuring accuracy in prescription filling which, again, manual processes increase the risk of.

This becomes even more complicated and time consuming when factoring in the need to comply with ever changing and strict regulations, including those surrounding data protection and GDPR.

These regulations and compliance requirements come with significant consequences for failing to meet them, which again increases the time and attention they require when they’re dealt with manually.

• Limiting time for patient care

All of these manual processes have the accumulated result that community pharmacists have less time to spend on the clinical and consultative services they’re now able to provide.

Rather than spending time with patients and taking on more challenging (and profitable) services, pharmacists are instead locked in a cycle of medication checks, manual dispensing and manual compliance - all of which increases the stresses caused by the price fluctuations, funding cuts and reimbursement issues we mentioned earlier.

Being able to expand advanced services - and deliver them - gives community pharmacists a bigger role to play in healthcare and increases the time they can spend with patients, rather than manual tasks.

Gurminder Singh is a pharmacist at the centre of the first episode of our new docuseries, The Game Changers of Community Pharmacy.

In the episode he speaks about the benefits advanced services offer pharmacists when it comes to patient care, and becoming more profitable.

“We thought if we could support the pharmacy and our overheads, like staff wages, our own wages and general overheads with the [advanced] services we provide [it would be worth it]. 

“How it was working out more recently is that the amount [of revenue] we were getting for drugs was the amount we were spending on drugs, and there wasn’t that leeway like there used to be to run the business.”

• Reduced losses from wastage

As well as reducing the opportunities for additional revenue, traditional pharmacy operations carry a higher risk of losses from wastage related to out-of-date medication caused by overstocking or poor purchasing practices.

Because pharmacists have no clear oversight of stock management, stock nearing the end of its usable life could be accidentally missed while stock with longer shelf life is provided instead.

This stock wastage can become extremely expensive to deal with.

Why integrating pharmacy systems is critical in modern healthcare

While many of the challenges exist due to a reliance on disjointed or manual processes, they can be easily overcome by integrating services and using technology.

• Increased efficiency

Pharmacy management software can remove many of the inefficiencies involved in pharmacy operations by automating manual tasks like prescription management and inventory control.

Smart systems can streamline the dispensing process while ensuring higher levels of accuracy, including management packaging and measurement.

These systems also reduce the burdens of inventory management by automatically monitoring stock levels and reordering stock once it drops below a certain threshold.

Automating these processes frees pharmacists up to spend more time on advanced services and building new revenue streams, while reducing losses caused by excessive labour costs or wastage.

• Improving patient safety

Pharmacy management tools ensure greater levels of accuracy and consistency in dispensing medications.

Prescriptions can be automatically matched to patient records and accurately dispensed, ensuring patients get the medication they need quicker.

Smart systems are also able to automatically access and assess patient data, including existing medications to ensure no interactions between existing and new medications (which would otherwise need to be checked manually).

By automating processes and checking patient data, these systems remove many of the dangers that exist within manual processes.

• Improving cost effectiveness

As well as improved safety, integrating pharmacy systems can lower operating costs, particularly when considering wastage from poor stock management.

These systems can automatically monitor stock levels and order new stock once levels fall below a certain threshold. By automating this process it reduces the risks of overstocking and items moving beyond their usable date.

This ensures costs are only for medication that is needed, rather than overstocking medication that isn’t moving.

Pharmacy management systems can also help to reduce labour costs by improving workflows and removing the manual work, freeing pharmacists up to focus on more personalised patient care and growth focused tasks.

• Driving better decisions with actionable data

Pharmacists naturally create masses of data that can be used to make better decisions and provide more personalised care.

The main challenge is compiling and analysing the data effectively when it comes from multiple sources.

Pharmacy management systems provide real-time access to comprehensive data related to everything from stock management and processes to patient records.

By analysing management and processes, pharmacists can easily identify bottlenecks and remove inefficiencies in order to improve how they work and reduce costs.

Patient data, automatically synced to other health sources can also help to improve the personalisation of pharmacy services, particularly when it comes to offering consultative or clinical services now available to community pharmacies.

• Improved compliance

UK pharmacies must adhere to strict regulations and controls both in medication dispensing and for data privacy and regulation.

Manual processes can create challenges here as it can be difficult to standardise processes as teams will often adapt working practices to make their work easier.

Automating pharmacy operations improves adherence to regulatory guidelines by creating standard processes, maintaining accurate records and automating safety checks.

This not only improves a pharmacy’s ability to adhere to regulations, but also contributes towards improving patient care.

• Giving patients more control over their health

One of the big drivers of advanced services and additional responsibilities is to increase the level of preventative care that patients can access, enabling them to take more ownership and control of their own health.

Integrating pharmacy systems makes this preventative care more accessible than it currently is, as patients tend to be able to access a pharmacy for an appointment far quicker than they can a GP.

Gurminder adds that giving patients ownership of their own care is a key part of why his pharmacy is so proactive when it comes to advanced services.

“If patients want to take their health into their own hands, then making it accessible for them [is really important],” he said.

“From there they can gauge on their own body’s level of what they need to change in their diet, health and lifestyle.”

Integrating processes to improve care and opportunities

It’s clear that big changes are needed to pharmacy operations in order for community pharmacists to take advantage of the opportunities being presented to them.

From removing inefficiencies, reducing errors and improving patient safety, to increasing efficiency and time for personalised patient care, pharmacy management systems greatly improve pharmacy operations not just in the short-term, but looking into the future.

To see more about how innovative technology is transforming real-life pharmacies, watch our new Game Changer: The Visionary video here