Pharmacies serving the long-term care market are likely to have special workflow requirements. Read on for vendors' views on the key elements to maximize LTC safety and efficiency.

Steve Hess, HBS (An SXC Company) Institutional pharmacy operations often require a pharmacist review station directly after the data input process.

Larry Stephenson, HCC In LTC, the cycle filling and billing of prescriptions is more efficient since our workflow process allows verification of medication for each fill within the cycle. Bar code verification of packaged product is complete regardless of the packaging method.

Mary Reno Innovation Associates We see special labeling challenges with blister packs, bingo cards, or tear-off refill reminders. Often, additional data fields such as facility, unit, and bed must be tracked. This is a little more complicated than a standard patient's address. Lastly, there are usually special tracking requirements because of the unique delivery process.

Louie Foster, Integra The local retail pharmacy is typically lower volume and less of a production line, whereas the typical LTC and mail order pharmacies are very production oriented. When you have a production environment, workflow becomes a key component on maintaining production, finding efficiencies and increasing the pharmacy's ability to manage the process.

Jeremy Hume, KeyCentrix Delivery tracking and prescription synchronization are key components for both retail and nursing home, but especially for nursing home.

Tom Michalski, McKesson Pharmacy Systems There are some key differences that workflow has to account for. LTC orders are created and grouped by facility or facility subset, whereas in retail they are by family or patient. LTC order size is typically much larger; literally hundreds of scripts vs. just a few. LTC prescription processing typically segregates oral solids from other dosage forms and it often separates controlled substances.

Ketan Mehta, Micro Merchant Systems We've found a need to select a category of prescriptions, such as PRN or topical meds, and print them on one sheet. This helps nurses to work more effectively. Also it is important to have the ability to automatically request refills for cycle-fill prescriptions.

Gary Schoettmer, RNA Health Information Systems It is imperative to monitor that prescriptions are placed in the correct delivery totes, and to track these totes through delivery. The RNA eManifest^TM handheld unit provides bar coded delivery check-in with an electronic signature capture to verify the delivery. Another special requirement of LTC is being able to track and locate orders in a batch refill or cycle fill process at any time.

Mike Coughlin, ScriptPro It is important to identify and separate long-term care prescriptions in the tracking process so the pharmacy can easily manage multiple inventories. SP Mobile Checkpoint allows the LTC facility to sign just once for receipt of the entire order. SP Central also prints a prescription label that includes a line drawing and description of the drug, which helps nurses do their job more efficiently and accurately. Our reorder labels contain standard prescription information that can easily be peeled off affixed to sheets for faxing to the pharmacy.

Tim Hutchison, SoftWriters Adding items to shipping totes destined for a specific nursing station or a specific facility, assuring that the order is being added to the proper tote, and managing all of these on a delivery-route/delivery-schedule basis are needs that are unique to the LTC provider.