Providing fast and accurate patient care is a common objective for pharmacy owners nationwide. However, manually filling prescriptions & keeping track of inventory is a tedious task, as Piedmont Pharmacy discovered. Not only is manually managing inventory tedious and prone to human error, but it has an impact on the quality of care patients receive.
“Before the RxSafe 1800, some of the biggest challenges our pharmacy had was inventory management, out-of-stocks, [and] time it was taking to fill prescriptions as we got busier,” says Vance Kiser, pharmacist and owner of Piedmont Pharmacy in Danville, Virginia. With patients in mind, Kiser knew there had to be a better way to manage inventory to decrease out-of stocks and increase the number of prescriptions that Piedmont Pharmacy could fill.
Razor-thin Inventory
As many pharmacists know, manually checking inventory typically takes a technician several hours, taking away valuable time from other programs and patient care. Even then, the manual process may not provide an accurate count of inventory.
“When it comes to inventory management with the RxSafe, we're able to manage returns and expired drugs,” explains Kiser. “One technician can run a report and handle what used to take about half a day, in 10-15 minutes.” With the addition of automation to Piedmont Pharmacy, Kiser says, “technicians have the free time to actually do the med sync program to the capacity it needed to be done. We couldn't do that before.”
Automating inventory management also helps Piedmont Pharmacy avoid the headache of costs caused by expired medications, allowing sufficient time to return expired medications to the warehouse to receive a refund. “Once we implemented the RxSafe, we were able to reduce our quantities on-hand for a lot of drugs. We were able to more closely monitor and keep a razor-thin inventory,” says Kiser, “[and] we were able to remove three bays of shelving in the prescription department.” Keeping a smaller on-hand inventory helps Piedmont Pharmacy cut down on inventory costs, plus it enables the pharmacy to have more space for other programs or products.
Peace of Mind = Priceless
With Piedmont Pharmacy’s average daily prescription volume averaging at about 300, Vance Kiser knows how important it is to accurately fill prescriptions as well as securely store C-II narcotics. “[It’s] real easy to grab the wrong strength of a drug. It's real easy to grab a lookalike drug. RxSafe is not going to let you do that. You know the right drug is going in that bottle every time,” says Kiser.
In addition to being able to accurately access the right prescription, “being able to know that I can look back on any transaction that's happened with a drug throughout the day, and see how it came in and out of the safe and point it back to a particular person, that really helps as far as peace of mind at night, and when I’m not here,” explains Kiser.
“You can go home and sleep well at night, knowing that the RxSafe took care of your patients with you throughout the day. The fact that I can go home and sleep at night knowing that everything was filled correctly is priceless,” says Kiser.
To hear more about how the RxSafe 1800 helped Piedmont Pharmacy cut down on inventory cost while delivering peace of mind, watch the full video above.
If you would like more information about the RxSafe 1800, please visit our product page or call (877) 365- 2369 to talk to a pharmacy automation expert.
