|
 McKesson Pharmacy Systems (MPS) President Stanton McComb sat down with ComputerTalk
senior editor Will Lockwood at the McKesson Pharmacy Strategies
Conference and Trade Show in Boston in July to talk about recent
changes at MPS resulting from the Per-Se Technologies acquisition, the
newest technology that MPS is offering, and the changes he sees ahead
for retail pharmacy practice.
CT: There’ve been some big changes recently at McKesson. What are you most excited about?
Stanton McComb: Two of the most exciting changes to come out of the
recent merger between Per-Se Pharmacy Systems and McKesson Pharmacy
Systems are our expanded customer base and staff.
The acquisition provides McKesson Pharmacy Systems with a far larger
customer base, which gives us access to more relationships, more
innovative ideas, and a greater understanding of what needs to be done
to improve retail pharmacy from a technology perspective. Now, as we
integrate our operations, we are especially focused on taking advantage
of these new relationships. Our top-of-mind goal is to become
exceptionally good at listening and responding to our customers, and
communicating with them on a regular basis.
The second major change brought on by the acquisition is the makeup of
our company. We now find ourselves with one of the greatest and largest
pharmacy software teams in the country. This is a team that has a
tremendous amount of experience. There are literally hundreds of MPS
employees who have been working on pharmacy software for 15 or 20
years, and some even longer than that. Now that we have so many more
resources at our disposal and so much more kNowledge inside of MPS,
it’s exciting to think about how we can leverage that talent and bring
it to bear on new opportunities for our customers.
CT: What do you see as the future of the pharmacy management system at
McKesson? How does the Internet-enabled ASP [application service
provider] model fit in?
McComb: I’ve been posed this question a few times already this week at
our McKesson Pharmacy Strategies Conference and Trade Show. Everyone’s
curious to know: Is the ASP delivery model here to stay? And is it
working? I do believe that the ASP model is the way of the future — I
really do. To be clear, when we say ASP, we are talking about a
software delivery method that allows customers on-demand access over
the Internet to their software application or solution, which is hosted
at a remote site. There are a lot of benefits associated with this ASP
delivery model. For example, it’s less expensive because it requires
less hardware inside each store. If the application includes workflow
and load balancing, a hosted system enables different stores to help
each other out during the course of business because they can be given
rights to work off of each other’s systems remotely. An ASP-enabled
system also inherently allows you to centralize data, which helps
simplify reporting and backup processes greatly. Keeping your system up
to date with the latest versions of the software is also much easier ––
as all new versions of an application can be loaded one time to one
central server. And, Will, these are only a few of the benefits. So,
yes, I am very excited about this technology in terms of what it means
for our customers and the industry.
CT: What about ASP availability and reliability?
McComb: Those have been the historical trade-offs and the source of a
lot of questions. However, we see problems with availability and
reliability fading away now. McKesson has looked closely at the
availability of high-speed connectivity, and we have found that there
are very few locations in the United States that still cannot get
access to high-speed Internet. So, as access becomes less and less of
an issue, costs will continue to come down as well.
Plus, as our first-hand experience with the reliability of
Internet-enabled applications like EnterpriseRx has demonstrated, we
are up and running 99.9% of the time. That’s a service level that
exceeds most banking ATM service levels, and we monitor uptime very
closely. On top of that, McKesson has developed a special solution —
called Down Time — that allows a pharmacy using EnterpriseRx to
continue processing scripts if, for some reason, the store loses
connectivity or the system does go down. Add to that solution
McKesson’s extensive, world-class, and fully redundant IT
infrastructure, and you have a very trustworthy solution. So, in truth,
we do not see reliability being an issue for our customers.
CT: You mentioned workload balancing and centralized reporting a moment ago. Tell us more about what’s new here.
McComb: Sure. When we think about pharmacy operations today, there’s no
question that workloads, for most, are increasing exponentially and
reimbursement for everyone is steadily decreasing. Quite simply, this
means that pharmacists and their staffs have to do more with fewer
resources. Then you have to layer on top of this dynamic the fact that
most store managers and owners struggle to find the time to run
reports, review pricing, conduct special patient and prescriber
marketing programs, and train staff. It makes life pretty tough, and
makes for very long days.
Technology can make a significant difference in this area. First of
all, the technology must be reliable, yet easy and efficient to use. At
MPS, we think our newest pharmacy system, EnterpriseRx, can even be
“fun” to use. Beyond that, we believe technology can empower and
position our customers to optimize their business by automating more
tasks that are either left undone today or that get done in a variable
fashion. We also see next-generation pharmacy systems allowing staff to
find time to do the things they want and need to do, such as spending
time with customers and balancing work across stores and resources.
A centralized system can also enable independents and groups of
independents to come together, cooperate, and potentially operate more
like chains. In the future, we envision a program whereby we can create
options for owners who say, “I want to share this data” but, “I don’t
want to share that data” with other stores in my group or area. For
example, I was just talking with somebody about pseudoephedrine who
said, “We should be able to track psuedoephedrine dispensing and
purchases across our local community and region.” This makes good
sense, and we are launching just such a service this month. But it can
be hard to do things like this when all your data is squirreled away in
a store account on a store server. There are a lot of things like this
that I think the ASP is a good solution for.
CT: Let’s talk about the new Pharmacy Navigator workflow system. What’s the history?
McComb: Eighteen months ago we sat down for an intense week-long
brainstorming session with some customers and talked about all the
things that drive them crazy and needlessly chew up their time. We
talked about all the tasks that are tedious and don’t make good
business sense. We talked about rework, the store dynamics around prior
auth, partial fills, post-it notes, ever-changing staff schedules, and
matching up different resources against variable levels of demand. We
mapped it all out and started dreaming up solutions. It was really a
great experience to think about how we wanted to solve the issues that
were causing our customers the most pain and that were affecting their
customer service and their employee satisfaction. We came up with 500
ideas and narrowed these down to 200. Then we said, “Let’s take these
new ideas and enhance and rewrite workflow.” Pharmacy Navigator came
out of that work.
CT: What can pharmacists expect from all the work that MPS did?
McComb: I’m really proud of what we have in Pharmacy Navigator. I
believe it will help pharmacies smoothly match supply and demand. What
I mean by that is this: Work comes in to the pharmacy on a variable
basis and varies by day. However, at the end of every day, you need to
deliver on the script when the patient demands it, and it’s going to be
different from one patient to another, and one script to another,
regardless of the ebb and flow of work in the pharmacy. Basic
“Operations 101” is matching your resources with your demand to make
sure that you hit particular service levels and that you are measuring
your activities, which is exactly where Pharmacy Navigator fits in. We
accentuated delivery-time-driven queues, which is not a new idea but
does allow you to have the right information at the right time. We also
added a dashboard that gives owners and managers a fresh look at what’s
going on in the store. With the dashboard, you can see how productive
individual staff members are and how profitable their work is. Today
most pharmacies have no real idea what productivity levels are and what
service levels are. Most people will claim that they fill scripts
within 12 or 15 minutes, but, in reality, they do not measure that
24/7. If they want to improve service to their customers and find more
time to offer new services, they need to truly understand their real
performance results.
CT: This sounds as if you are moving workflow beyond the basic concept
of dividing tasks in the filling process along a production line, and
heading toward using it as a source for collecting and analyzing data
as well. Is this right?
McComb: Exactly. Pharmacy Navigator is first and foremost about
establishing organized operations, but it’s also now about optimization
and continuously improving that workflow. For example, if you are
monitoring your workflow you might find out that you have a bottleneck
at your verification stage. Why is that? Maybe it’s because your
pharmacist is spending too much time filling versus verifying. Or maybe
you’ll find that you have a ton of inventory at will-call that’s not
getting picked up. So perhaps to alleviate this, you could do more
customer notifications. The next generation of workflow gives you this
kind of detail. It’s more than just an image of a script and a pill on
the same screen. It’s about optimization for all your processes. I’m
genuinely excited about that, but what I’m most proud of is the major
role our customers played in designing this functionality. This is the
first time McKesson used our new staged commercialization process.
Customers had to sign off on each stage, saying, “Yes, that’s the right
set of priorities,” “Those prototypes look good,” “Those are good
quality assurance tests,” or “I liked the alpha version.” We’ve had
customer support and involvement all along the way. It’s an exciting
launch for us.
CT: What are some of the highlight features in the new workflow product?
McComb: It has biometrics and single-user sign-on, which eliminates the
need to reauthenticate users as they move from one application to
another. From a technical standpoint it uses the latest Dell server
that has a tremendous amount of memory for pill and script images. When
integrated with Pharmaserv, it has centralized reporting, so you can
now mix and match all the reporting that you get in your pharmacy
management system with what you get from workflow. In the past,
Pharmaserv and P2000 were like distant cousins who spoke to each other
by mail once in a while. Now they are two brothers living under the
same roof. It’s a much better suite. It’s worth noting that Pharmacy
Navigator can also interface with pharmacy management systems other
than Pharmaserv.
We also included two other exciting features that came out of our
customer brainstorming session — first, pharmacists told us that
they spend a lot of time looking for, say, one of five prescriptions
for a customer. And it’s always one little odd thing that keeps it
hidden; maybe it’s hung up in IVR or in adjudication, or maybe it’s
done, but in the refrigerator. So we created a new module called
virtual will-call that allows each store to define its own storage
locations. Call them bagged, cabinet, refrigerator, delivery — call
them whatever you want. You scan a finished prescription and associate
it with one of these predefined virtual will-call locations. When Mr.
Smith comes to the front counter, you pull up the information in the Rx
Tracker module and say, “I see three prescriptions for you in
will-call, one in the fridge, and one that’s still waiting for
authorization from your physician.” That’s a much more intelligent and
efficient conversation than giving him three scripts and then having
him go home and call you asking where the fourth and fifth are. In that
case, maybe you find the one in the fridge quickly, but then have to
call him back after tracking down the fifth, which was waiting for
authorization. You add the time that it takes to play detective and
multiply that by maybe 20 times a day, and that’s a significant drain
on productivity.
CT: There’s been a strong emphasis at this conference on McKesson’s
efforts to support medication therapy management [MTM] and adherence.
What are your thoughts?
McComb: We all know that differentiation around clinical care is good.
There seems to be good momentum across the industry toward MTM. It’s a
great opportunity for retail pharmacists because they know their
patients, they understand their needs, they are clinical experts, they
have a good knowledge base, and they are among the most trusted
professionals in the United States. It’s a great opportunity — if they
have the time to do it. But think again about what most pharmacists are
doing on an average day. They’re getting in early and doing the scripts
that came in overnight, or dealing with staffing issues and whatever
else is going on. They’re working hard all day, maybe taking lunch and
maybe not. At the end of the day, are they going to do pricing or any
number of other things? There’s not a whole lot of bandwidth to enable
MTM today from an operations standpoint — never mind marketing the
service to physicians or doing advertising.
CT: So what role do you see MPS playing?
McComb: From a systems standpoint, we have to find our customers the
time and the serenity to do counseling services, be it 5, 20, or 45
minutes. If Mrs. Smith is coming in at 2:30 and she’s a counseling
candidate, your system needs to identify her eligibility and then
adjust your workflow around that possible appointment. Candidates may
come in at various times and, as the pharmacist, you can’t drop
everything else. The workflow impact is going to be significant when
MTM really gets going — which may be two or three years away —
because the time in the day is not there right now. It’s going to be
interesting. You are going to have to be able to fill, say, 25% of your
scripts that come in overnight before your doors open. This bodes well
for pharmacy systems with workflow and workload balancing, and for
technology automation, central fill, and after-hours pickup.
CT: It sounds as if technology is going to continue to have a central
role in the pharmacy. Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts
with us, Stanton.
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Steve
Bieszczat is senior VP of marketing at Epicor. He has been with the
company for 25 years and has worked with POS for all of that time. He led the
initiative to take Epicor into the pharmacy market, because he thought the
market was under-served at POS. In this interview with ComputerTalk senior editor Will Lockwood, Bieszczat talks about how
he sees POS encompassing inventory, price, and margin management, as well as
reporting. He outlines ...
Ateb, based in
Raleigh, N.C., first got into the pharmacy industry to apply large-scale
telecom solutions to the pharmacy department. Twenty years later, the company
has carved out a niche for itself in pharmacy, and maintains a vision to provide
tools that allow pharmacists to communicate with their patients, and to manage
their healthcare as well. The company's VP of sales and marketing, Debbie
Sheppard, talks about the company's growth.
<...
Matt
Reichert is CEO of Health Market Science, a provider of solutions that leverage
the industry's most comprehensive and accurate prescriber database. Reichert
has managed the launch of several new products, overseen aggressive revenue
growth at the company, and been instrumental in developing the infrastructure
and staff to support company growth. Reichert sat down recently with John
Becker, representing ComputerTalk, to
discuss the new provider data requirements defined in CMS-4157 and how the
industry ...
Nathan
Mott, president of McKesson Pharmacy Systems and Automation, has been with
McKesson for over 17 years and is currently responsible for all retail pharmacy
software and automation. Joe Montler is VP of marketing strategy and business development
for McKesson Pharmacy Systems and Automation. ComputerTalk's Will Lockwood spoke with both during ideaShare 2012
about trends in technology and opportunities for community pharmacy.
Lathe Bigler serves as Emdeon's senior director of clinical services
for the pharmacy services division. He has more than 15 years of experience in
healthcare and information technology. He recently spoke with ComputerTalk's Will Lockwood about the
latest efforts to improve the availability of patients' health and medication
information across the healthcare continuum.
Shay
Reid is VP of operations for AmerisourceBergen. A ten-year ABC veteran, Reid is
responsible for operational strategy development and for implementing
technology and processes that help ensure patient safety, cost-effectiveness,
and on-time delivery to more than 20,000 pharmacies and other healthcare
providers. Reid played a key role in defining ABC's efforts to identify
solutions for Florida pedigree and California track-and-trace. Most recently,
Reid worked alongside industry colleagues in the Prescription Drug Security
Alliance (PDSA) to identify ...
David Abrams has developed extensive expertise in retail over the course of his career, starting in 1978 when he became the assistant manager of his first RadioShack. He continued with that company for 11 years and then spent two to three years each with Bradlees, Caldors, Ames, Bed Bath & Beyond, TJ Maxx, and CVS before moving to Sarasota, Fla., and beginning to work for Davidson Drugs, where he's been with for the past ten years. He ...
Medication adherence has a prominent role in the current national conversation about healthcare. In this interview FLAVORx CEO Stu Amos talks with ComputerTalk senior editor Will Lockwood about the role flavoring liquid medications can play in promoting adherence, and some of the challenges to making this process more efficient in order to increase its availability.
The McCoys were generous enough
to provide a number of examples that show just the sorts of errors they are
seeing in the e-prescriptions coming into their pharmacy. Read on to see the prescription as received
and the McCoys' comments. If you haven't read the story in the Jan/Feb 2012 issue, titled "The E-Prescribing Learning Curve: One Pharmacy's Experience," you can find it <...
ScriptChek was founded a little over eight years ago when
CEO Stacy Kaufman saw an opportunity to improve how well patients understand
their prescription medications. First came the company's extended tab label,
which provides more real estate for printing information. The most recent
development is a 2-D printable image library that can be printed on vial labels
and patient information leaflets. In this interview ComputerTalk senior editor Will Lockwood finds out about Kaufman's
...
Chad Hammerstrom, Net-Rx CEO, started out in pharmacy
working as a box boy for Hi-School Pharmacy in Vancouver Wash. Hammerstrom, who
grew up on the systems side of the business, reports originally being more IT
focused. Hammerstrom has built
Net-Rx into a company with a broad portfolio designed to provide pharmacies
with operational support in areas such as pricing and claims reconciliation. ComputerTalk senior editor Will Lockwood
caught up with Hammerstrom recently to find out ...
Michael Busch has been involved in pharmacy for a long time.
For starters, he has a pharmacy degree himself. Then he was the founder of
Medicine Shoppe International, which he sold to Cardinal Health in 1995. Next
he developed software to monitor third-party prescription reimbursements for
independent and small chain pharmacies, a business that he also sold to
Cardinal Health - this time in 2005 - and that is now operated under the Profit
Leader name. Not surprisingly, retirement doesn't suit ...
HCC, a long-standing competitor in the pharmacy management
software arena, and FDS, a company that's built a presence in the relatively
young field of pharmacy data management services, were both recently acquired
by Lagniappe Health, a Calvert Street Capital Partners company. In this interview, ComputerTalk Senior Editor Will Lockwood ...
We checked in with Retail Management
Solutions' (RMS) Chris Gage, who is about six months into her two-year road
trip across America visiting RMS' independent pharmacy customers. She shares
some of the opportunities she's uncovered for how technology vendors can better
support independent pharmacy and a few thoughts on what she's found sets these
pharmacists apart. You can follow Chris's travels by visiting 
Michael Bronfein, CEO of Remedi
SeniorCare, reached out with three priorities and one challenge that
will be his focus for the 2012. Remedi
SeniorCare is the seventh largest LTC pharmacy in the country and is
based in Baltimore, Md.
Chuck Wilson, VP of operations for Health Mart, grew up in a
family that owned an independent pharmacy. He eventually got a pharmacy degree
from the University of Iowa and then gained experience working in operations
for several of the big chains, including a 13 year stint at Target during which
time the pharmacy business grew from 114 to 1,400 locations and he studied the
ins and outs of branding and running retail establishments. During McKesson's 2011 ideaShare,
Wilson talked with ComputerTalk
senior editor Will Lockwood about ...
Lonny Wilson has quite a bit of experience
working with third-party payers and claims data on behalf of independent
pharmacy. Wilson is both a retail pharmacy owner and a practitioner of pharmacy
and CEO of PPOk and Rx Linc. In this interview with ComputerTalk Senior Editor Will Lockwood, Wilson talks about the
current challenges pharmacies face negotiating contracts and preventing and
responding to audits, and the opportunities available in better managing
pharmacy ...
For the past 30 years, DataScan
Pharmacy's founder and president, Alex Minassian, has watched the technology
that pharmacists use change along with the business model. Today, the
self-taught programmer is scaling back his involvement and handing off the day-to-day
operations to his son Kevin, now VP of the Holbrook, N.Y., company. Alex and
Kevin agree: The pressures on pharmacists has changed so much that a pharmacist
today has to be as much an innovative business thinker as a ...
Tammy
Devine, M.B.A., brings an in depth knowledge of pharmacy software and
automation to her new role as president of QS/1. Over the course of almost 30
years with the company Devine has applied her background in computer science to
finding technology solutions that support the clinical practice and the
business of pharmacy. She's learned the business and the market by having several
different roles at QS/1. Devine spoke with ComputerTalk 
Jae Chung,
M.B.A., of Sensor Synergy has a background as an industrial engineer designing
workflows in high volume manufacturing environments. For the past 10 years he
has focused on pharmacy - visiting over 500 pharmacies. He brings an emphasis
on assessment of workflow, design, and automation, as well as business strategy
development. Jae has recently completed a study of the impact of packaging type
and dispensing cycle on long-term care (LTC) pharmacy costs and spoke with ...
Cloud computing is popular topic these days, with companies
announcing new offerings "in the cloud" on a regular basis.
Even if you already use cloud-based services, and there are many out there,
it's worth not only trying to understand better just what it is this concept
means, but what the impact can be for pharmacy. To find out more about
the cloud, we checked in with Mark Carvajal, the founder of a new outfit ...
You may be wondering what it takes to have an "app for that"
in your pharmacy operations. The mobile devices in the hands of your customers
and patients offer real opportunity when apps are approached with the appropriate
strategy. In this interview with Dan Grace, Acclaim Mobile's senior business
development manager for premise and hosted solutions, ComputerTalk senior editor Will Lockwood hears about what you can expect from these apps and how to ...
Ian Shendale, CEO of Med Time Technology, the co-creator of
the Pill Timer prescription closure caps, speaks with ComputerTalk
Senior Editor Will Lockwood about the issue of medication regimen adherence.
Shendale outlines why this may be the critical issue facing patients,
providers, and the healthcare system as a whole and what Med Time and partner
Rexam are doing to support patients taking their medications as prescribed.
One of the features of the 2010 McKesson Trade Show in Las Vegas was a
continuing education presentation give by industrial engineer Robin Gensler,
and sponsored by Parata Systems. Gensler came to talk with independent
pharmacists about how they can best analyze their operations, and develop
methods for making educated decisions about workflows, staffing, and
technology. Gensler made several interesting observations about what you can
learn using the right methods. For example, Gensler mentioned studies that
showed that the ...
My name is
Bryan Samuels and I am the technology director for a company called
Modern Health. We are a privately held, specialty pharmacy company
located in Southern California. Our company owns and operates six
different specialty pharmacies each catering to its own specific
demographic and/or disease state. Collectively, we dispense over 1.5 million prescriptions a
year.
A recent conversation with Bob Moser, R.Ph., supervisor
of pharmacy clinical systems for Winston Salem Healthcare Pharmacy,
brought up the topic of checklists and their potential to improve
pharmacy operations. The topic came to Moser's attention from several
sources, including reading airline captain Chesley Sullenberger's book
"Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters." In this interview, ComputerTalk
senior editor Will Lockwood talks with Moser to find out more about ...
Pharmacist and owner Jimmy Yuen recently installed dispensing automation at his Advance Medical Pharmacy in Walnut Creek, Calif. In this audio slide show, he talks about the decision process that led him to select Kirby Lester’s new KL60 and his decision to to invite his independent colleagues for a first-hand look at this technology.
In this interview, pharmacist Jay Lalkiya talks about how he's using
a tool called myPharmacyTrainer to educate his staff at Apalachin
Pharmacy about how to improve store operations and how best to interact
with customers. This tool offers 22 modules that recreate scenarios
commonly encountered by pharmacy staff and employs an interactive,
audio/visual educational approach.
In this podcast, McKesson Pharmacy Systems President Stanton McComb
covers a range of topics surrounding pharmacy, technology, and the
current drive for healthcare reform. He offers his take on what new
roles pharmacy may play as a result, the growing role of clinical care
in pharmacy, and what’s on the horizon for technology for the pharmacy
and for the patient. Also part of the discussion: What MTM means for
retail pharmacy right now and what it ...
For the last twelve months, many independent pharmacies have
struggled over the decision of whether to register their pharmacy under the 90% Rule, or invest in an IIAS certified point-of-sale. For one reason or another, many pharmacies opted for the 90%
Rule. It seemed like a logical
choice. No expensive
point-of-sale, no major changes, just a little complicated paperwork and it is
back to business as usual. For some,
this has worked out. For others,
FSA card declines have ...
Pharmacies already have OTC items in their stores, and with a little
planning and proper placement, those standard items can turn into added sales
at the POS.
This letter from Integra CEO Kevin Welch is in response
to the article written by Kapali Eswaran in the September/October 2009 issue of ComputerTalk
regarding "What to Look for in a Paperless System."
The mobile technology initiative in 
Long-time independent pharmacist Bob Graul has made some big changes and taken a new direction recently. In this interview with ComputerTalk senior editor Will Lockwood, Graul talks about the process of selling his pharmacies and how this motivated him to get involved in his current project: 
You're probably aware that as of January 1, 2009 there will be new rules for pharmacies processing payments for items eligible for FSA/HRA spending. If you have a point-of-sale (POS) system, you'll need to make sure it is IIAS compliant and that your system has been certified. If you don't have POS, then you may be looking for another solution. In this interview, Retail Management Solutions President Brad Jones and KeyCentrix ...
Managing a pharmacy's front-end can be a time-consuming and complex task. But there are ways to make life easier. In this interview with ComputerTalk's Maggie Lockwood, ECRS President Peter Catoe talks about how the company's Supplier Gateway can connect its Catapult point-of-sale (POS) system with supplier ordering systems to reduce the time spent on ordering, pricing, and other activities.
In this interview with ComputerTalk's Will Lockwood, DAA VP for business development Abrar Kazmi talks about the company's new OnClickTech Support offering, which offers remote PC support. This is a joint venture with Team 9 Global Serivces, and is something a little different for ...
McKesson Pharmacy Systems' (MPS) president Stanton McComb took time during the most recent McKesson Trade Show in Las Vegas to answer a series of questions from ComputerTalk's Will Lockwood about what the centrally-hosted EnterpriseRx pharmacy management product, already deployed in the chain setting, offers for independent pharmacy.
Pharmacist Doug Kaleugher opened Med-Fast Pharmacy 1990. Since then the business has expanded to 22 pharmacies in western Pennsylvania, with a mix of standard prescription services, retail, long-term care, and compounding. In this interview with ComputerTalk's Will Lockwood, Kaleugher talks about the big role dispensing automation has played Med-Fast's growth. He also offers strategies for introducing automation into your pharmacy and his take on the benefits of some of the newest dispensing technology out there.
Dave Burke R.Ph, M.B.A., pictured at left in blue, owner of Dave’s Pharmacy in Marysville, Ohio, took some time out at the recent Cardinal RBC to talk with ComputerTalk's Will Lockwood about his decision to a install a workflow management system and the benefits he has seen. Dave’s Pharmacy fills an average of 400 prescriptions per day, with peaks on some ...
Jonathan Rider, owner of Rider Pharmacy in Fairmont, W.Va., is a firm believer in perpetual inventory. He took a few minutes at the Cardinal RBC in Orlando, Fla., to talk to ComputerTalk’s Will Lockwood about Cardinal Inventory Management (CIM), how he uses Kirby Lester counting technology to speed through the daily counts that are the basis for this inventory tracking method, and the financial and operational improvements he’s seen.
Joe Ross, director of business services at McKesson Pharmacy Systems, talks in this interview with ComputerTalk senior editor Will Lockwood about existing and anticipated regulations that are changing what drug sales pharmacists are required to log. State and Federal regulations that require tracking the sale of non-prescription methamphetamine precursors have contributed to a demonstrable reduction in the illegal use of these drugs. More regulation may be in store, since the FDA is currently considering a behind-the-counter class of ...
Here is an overview of the big questions about e-prescribing that
pharmacists were asking Speed Script’s Heath Reynolds during the 109th
NCPA meeting in October. Reynolds, director of business development,
talks here of the nuts and bolts of taking e-prescribing from theory to
practice.
ComputerTalk senior editor Will Lockwood caught up recently with Marc Cohen, senior director of marketing for RelayHealth, to talk about what's happening in the world of claims processing and switching services.
It turns out that there are some interesting new additions being made that build on the transactional expertise and connectivity that are the core elements of these services.
Parata brought its RDS robotics directly to ComputerTalk recently, courtesy of its new mobile unit. The concept was developed over the past year as a way to reach out to busy community pharmacists.
