How to Manage a Pharmacy with Medical Technology: Guide

When it comes to healthcare, organizing inventory takes on particular importance.

Patients need the right medicine and dosage for their individual therapies. They also need a steady supply and stock that is available to them in a timely manner. As a Pharmacist, your Pharmacy has a pivotal role to play in the process of delivering medicine and healthcare products to the end-users; AKA the patients.

NodensHealth recognizes the unique challenges with managing a pharmacy, juggling medical expertise with the technical skills behind the curtain of inventory management. Beyond this initial challenge, there is the ongoing need for compliance and regulations. `Operating a Pharmacy is both a logistical and medical endeavor.

Today’s world offers a new challenge to Pharmacists as well, the global supply chain and maintaining optimum stock levels, all while meeting strict and varying laws. For Pharmacists, the needs of the Patient take on an extra level of importance. Here’s how you as a Pharmacist can master your Pharmacy’s inventory management.

Identify Customer Demands

To optimize Patient Services, there needs to be a clear line of communication, both between the Pharmacies and their suppliers, as well as Pharmacies and their patients.

The pharmaceutical supply chain is complex and problems can easily arise, yet there is only a small margin for error. As a Pharmacy, consider what it is that your patients need regularly to maintain their medicinal therapies. While you may not be able to control global events, you can be prepared and serve Patients as much as possible.

With the needs of the customer in mind, Pharmacies can prioritize which products to have in stock to match the demand of their Patients.

Professional Handling of Medicines

A general rule for Pharmacies is to minimize the handling of drugs among non-medical workers. For example, a warehouse distributor may transport the Pharmacy packages between locations, but those packages can only be opened by qualified professionals - such as pharmacists or inspectors.

These laws are in place to guarantee the safety of Patients, and any breach, unintentional or not, will be viewed seriously. Staying on top of the latest rules is a crucial aspect of a successful pharmacy.

NodensHealth provides an efficient inventory management system to help pharmacies streamline various processes, including:

1. Receiving and putaway of new inventory
2. Pick and pack of medicinal therapies
3. Order fulfillment for patients in real-time

When Pharmacists engage the full capabilities of NodensHealth cloud-based platform, it enables the Pharmacy to reduce the risk of mistakes or damage to the products while adhering to regulations.

Avoid Overstock

Mistakes are human, and it can be easy to have too much in stock, or maybe your staff are only estimating what it is that they need. The cost of medicine and healthcare recruitment are on the rise and overstock can cause unnecessary waste.

A new study has also found that nearly $5 billion worth of drugs in unopened packs are dumped in the garbage every year.

Avoid waste and overstock by managing relationships at both ends of the supply chain.

NodensHealth helps Pharmacists to understand demand with inventory control so your Pharmacy will be able to accurately communicate your stock needs and receiving. The end goal is to minimize waste across the board and reduce costs all-around.

While there are times that certain stock levels may dip due to stock-outs, by managing your overall levels efficiently your Pharmacy will avoid wasting of expensive drugs.

Manage Repeat Prescriptions

Every Pharmacy experiences repeat prescriptions, when patients come back regularly to collect their medicinal therapies.

For Pharmacies, having a simple process in place to streamline those prescriptions will save their staff time and money, while improving accuracy with a totally cloud-based system.

With repeat prescriptions also comes the chance that those prescriptions are not collected by the patients and then require being returned to the shelf. Using NodensHealth let’s Pharmacies be proactive with returns so you will be able to resell the drugs or communicate as needed with the manufacturer.

Having a streamlines system lets you build strong relationships with your patients and medicinal partners.

Real-Time Visibility

A core component to successful Inventory Management is real-time visibility.

ensHealth offers a competitive advantage that helps Pharmacists unload the burden and stress of paper management and legal regulations. This advantage is focused on the ability to directly manage inventory in real-time.

Increase accuracy, improve communications, and streamline staff efforts with a complete platform that integrates with your current systems.

Using the real-time data in NodensHealth system, with workflow automations, and reconciliations let the Pharmacy ensure total compliance throughout the supply chain.

Avoid the complexity of managing a Pharmacy Inventory system manually and increase accuracy with a cloud-based platform that is accessible anywhere.

As a Pharmacy, you are trusted to deliver the right medicine at the right time, to the right people. Ensure inventory accuracy, become more efficient, reduce costs, and find new growth opportunities with NodensHealth.