Pharmacy Software
Pharmacy software is a computer system that processes handling and distributing prescribed medicines. All the tasks of a pharmacy including counting of capsules and tablets; updating and tracking of customer personal details; management of inventory; and mixing and measuring of liquids and powders for compounding have all undergone some changes. The manual calculation of medicines, mixing for compounding, and inventory are now automated. Pharmacy software is one of the results of advancement in technology to help every pharmacist lighten their work.
Mistakes about the number of available medicine or stock, human error on inventory, and the hard time in dispensing medicine orders in a paper prescription are just some of the common challenges of drugstores and even hospitals. The arrival of pharmacy software has answered all these problems and it helps every pharmacist to focus on other things. They can now spend more time talking to their patients and establish relationships rather than finding the pills or tablets that are not available even when it shows on the inventory that those medicines are available. This is a waste of time both on the part of the pharmacist and the patients.
The transformation of pharmacy software from the early 1980s up to the present time has brought big help to both pharmacists and patients. It also contributes to keeping the business on track and to managing it properly without missing any aspect. Thus, the changes from the slow speed of processing every pharmacy transaction to the real-time processing of assigning doctors, scanning the prescribed medicines, dispensing the right medicine, and documentation have brought an upgrade of service to every patient.
According to Capterra blog, the first company that used pharmacy software was Walgreens. Walgreens is the second largest pharmacy store in the United States and they have developed Intercom Plus to integrate every pharmacy transaction they are doing across the nation. The Intercom Plus uses VSAT satellite and broadband to operate and connect more than 8,000 retail stores across the United States. But there is always room for improvement in everything. The scale sign on feature was so slow that you could just write the label instead of waiting for it to be printed out. Consequently, the email feature of this software was faster than the usual phone calls which make you wait for your turn before you speak to a representative. You can receive their response via email within five minutes and get the accurate answer for your query.
Benefits of Pharmacy Software
-
High speed and accurate data
One of the benefits of pharmacy software is that it makes every pharmacy transaction faster and 100% accurate. There are scenarios where patients wait for an hour before they can get prescriptions from the pharmacist. It is always the pharmacist who takes all the blame for the slow service, but the truth is, every pharmacist also wants to fill the prescriptions as fast as they can so that their patients can go home and enjoy their time with their loved ones. The reason behind the slow pharmacy transaction is their slow pharmacy software. Therefore, when choosing pharmacy software, always consider and check the software’s average speed in finishing a single pharmacy transaction. Also, it must be accurate. There are scenarios that the pharmacist needs to amend the printed prescription because the information is not accurate and this might lead the patient to a dreadful health condition.
-
Easy to use
Reading a written prescription from the doctor is a hard task because the pharmacist needs to decipher it carefully in order to formulate a prescription that can be understood by a simple person. There are times that doctors get annoyed with their pharmacists because they did not give the right prescriptions to their patients. This mistake sometimes happens because of the pressure on dispensing every pharmacy transaction to every patient. Imagine how many patients go to the hospital and sometimes pharmacists do not take their breaks on time due to the high volume of patients they are assisting. As a result, there are times they commit human error when giving prescriptions to the patients. When choosing pharmacy software, it should be easy to use. The software must take the responsibility of translating the doctor’s written prescription after scanning it. This will save the time of every pharmacist and they can focus on doing other things.
-
Quick communication and reachable
Mail-order pharmacy transaction has dramatically increased over the time. It is because of the rapid spread of new devices all over the world such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops. Patients can now purchase their orders through online transactions. It saves both the time of the pharmacist and patients because they don’t have to interact personally, but they will just send an email to confirm orders and it will be delivered within the same day. It also removes the traditional phone call transactions because the pharmacy software will process and confirm the order of every patient. Patients will no longer have to wait on queues or be directed to voicemail when the phone was not answered. This will also lessen human errors and every pharmacy transaction will be completed faster than the normal routine.
-
Electronic prescription
Every pharmacist will agree that handling paper prescriptions is a dreadful and energy-draining task. Good thing that the pharmacy software has arrived to handle those prescriptions for the pharmacist. Electronic prescriptions will reduce paper works such as sending request electronically rather than faxing the paper to request an order; dispensing medications electronically such as the number of times in a day the patients will take the medicine; and faster dispensing of prescriptions as compared to the traditional way of giving a prescription. This feature helps pharmacists complete every pharmacy transaction in seconds or in a short period of time.
How to Choose the Best Pharmacy Software
When choosing the best pharmacy software, it will always go back to the question of every pharmacist – how can I find a system that will not fight against me? Modern medication has brought every personnel into a busy world because of the high volume of patients they are assisting every day. In fact, there are a lot of medical software currently being used in the world of modern medication. There are types of medical software for diagnosis purposes, data analysis for patient monitoring and diagnosis, dental management, health system management, and much more.
There are a lot of things to consider before proceeding to the final decision of choosing the best pharmacy software. Whether you are small drug retailers or a large pharmaceutical company, you need to check the wants of your pharmacists in order to improve the service they are delivering to your customers. Most probably, they want to have a software that does not need amendment when it comes to prescription details; or maybe they want to take their breaks on time because they can process every pharmacy transaction in just seconds. After getting all the answers from the side of your employees, you can now proceed to the next step.
The next thing to do is to read reviews of the best pharmacy software on the internet. You can search and find reviews on Google but if you want to save more of your time, you can simply jump in at CrowdReviews.com. This website will help you manage your expectations with all pharmacy software available in the market. You can find the reviews of existing users of different brands of pharmacy software at CrowdReviews.com. After reading the reviews from existing customers, you can now limit your options by selecting two to three brands of pharmacy software that you think will be the best for your company.
Then, the usual process of creating a chart or table to compare the features of the three brands of pharmacy software is the next step that you need to take. There are features that you do not need and might be a waste of penny because the overall cost of the software will be based on the number of features included in the software package. Check all the features and match it with the needs of your company. Once, you have completed the matching type, the next step is to weigh the benefits you can get from subscribing to that software. If you are using current pharmacy software, you might have to consider listing down the features you want for the ideal software. These features must be the things you are not getting from your current pharmacy software.
Finally, you will still go back to what you can afford. Small drug retailers cannot spend much in buying pharmacy software. The cost is also an important factor to consider when choosing the software. There are brands of pharmacy software that are affordable yet allow you to get a better service in completing pharmacy transactions. You can check CrowdReviews.com to help you decide on choosing the best pharmacy software for your business.
Latest posts by Tom Lewis (see all)
- How Can the Best Nonprofit Software Benefit Your Organization? - January 13, 2017
- Why Is It Crucial to Choose the Best Database Management Software? - January 12, 2017
- What Is the Right Enterprise Resource Management for Your Business? - January 10, 2017