As the owner or manager of a long term care pharmacy, your momentum toward achieving greater efficiency in things like inventory control and dispensing processes need not be earth-shattering in order to produce real, long-lasting benefits. Through the utilization of some of today’s available technologies, automated medication management systems, and an increase in workflow efficiency, it’s possible for small, minute improvements to add up to huge improvements in productivity over the long haul.
Long Term Care Pharmacy Workflows
Unlike conventional pharmacies that have a front end open to retail customers, a long term care pharmacy is a type of closed door facility that only serves a specific clientele, such as residents in a nursing home, retirement home, hospice center, assisted care or extended care facility. Work spaces will be required by any number of workers within the pharmacy, including pharmacists, pharmacy techs, data entry technicians, managers, delivery personnel, and more. Typical duties carried out within a long term care pharmacy may include:
- Filling prescriptions
- Handling refill requests
- Compounding IVs
- Repackaging medicines
- Delivery operations
- Updating records
- Working with controlled substances
- Updating emergency medication kits
- Answering phones
While several of these duties may be handled by a single individual, it’s important that work spaces be designed to accommodate everyone within those spaces without having to step over or go around one another in order to complete their assigned tasks. Every extra step taken means that a particular job takes extra time to accomplish. Conversely, every step saved means time saved and, as with most things, time is money! Here are three things to consider in your continuing effort to add more efficiency to your pharmacy operations:
- Redesigning your pharmacy workflow may involve reassigning some of the duties traditionally performed by pharmacists to pharmacy techs, thereby freeing up the pharmacist to concentrate their activities in other areas like clinical activities. It may also be possible to combine two or more tasks into a single operation handled by one person, thereby additionally reducing certain ongoing labor requirements. The amount of time spent on order entry and verification can be extensive and, if added to the role of a technician, can free up a considerable amount of the pharmacist’s time.
- Modern technology and automation can be utilized to improve pharmacy workflow. This may include the use of robotics, automated dispensing and packaging, and technological improvements made within the IV room. Shorter medication dispensing cycles, now legally mandated in most jurisdictions, are effective in eliminating much of the medication waste previously experienced; and modernized prescription delivery models such as automated dispensing systems are an important part of this modernization.
- The strategic solutions provided by professionally designed and installed pharmacy shelving, counters, and work spaces will go a long way in improving your long term pharmacy workflow efficiency. Having each individual work space outfitted with custom-designed, durable, manageable components can allow everyone working within your pharmacy to have what they need within arm’s length for the job they’re called on to do. Flexibility in height, width, and depth of each component and the right addition of accessories and special features can make each individual work area ideal for the job at hand.
Remember, it only takes a small change to produce a huge increase in efficiency and productivity over the long run. Just one minute of time saved on a particular repetitive operation, added up over a day, a week or a month’s time, can add up to big savings in both time and money. It will also improve general morale among the workers.
