Back in the day, long-term care (LTC) was a reason for the use of computers in pharmacies. Long-term care facilities did not have the financial resources to set up their own pharmacies, so they contracted with pharmacies to fill the prescriptions. This was then an opportunity for community pharmacies to expand their business model. And many did.
Pharmacy Technology for LTC
However, to service the facilities, pharmacists could benefit from computers that had software specific to the requirements of long-term care. This included printing out the patients’ medication administration sheets for the nursing staff, along with treatment sheets and the physician order sheets. And the computer could check for possible drug interactions for the prescriptions filled — this was another plus.
Billing for Prescriptions
Billing for the drugs dispensed also benefited from having a computer to handle this task. So when we look back, it was the pharmacists who saw an opportunity to expand beyond filling retail prescriptions, which provided the springboard for the use of computers in pharmacies.
No question that these pharmacies were the early adopters of computer technology. Long-term care was the incentive to invest in the technology. And it became an important asset in soliciting new accounts. Those using computers clearly had a competitive advantage. And it turned out to be a profitable niche area for the pharmacies.
The drug chains weren’t set up to handle this business, so the community independent pharmacies took full advantage. Today we have pharmacies that do nothing but service long-term care facilities.
Since then, we have come a long way in how the computer applications have evolved. These days pharmacies have bidirectional communication with the facilities, taking the use of the technology to a new level of service.
I can safely say that the pharmacists who saw an opportunity with long-term care benefited from the use of computer technology. I view the technology as the catalyst. CT