SHELF OBSESSED

Pharmacy practice can be frustrating and rewarding in equal measure. It can be challenging keeping the spark of idealism that got you into the field alive, especially when your ideals collide head-on with the realities of low margins, high competition, and ever-shifting expectations. So how do you keep your pharmacy competitive without compromising either your ideals or your bottom line?

Not once in our many years of business has the Shelving Design Systems team met a pharmacist who wished they had more paperwork to deal with. If the reams of records, documents, receipts, invoices, and other files a pharmacy needs to handle and retain threaten to swamp you in paper, it’s time to find an alternative. Namely, it’s time to explore an electronic document management solution.

For a segment that didn’t exist a decade ago, the Internet of Things (IoT) is assuming outsized importance across several industries. The IoT is already causing seismic changes in pharmaceutical manufacturing, but because of a combination of regulatory and market forces, retail pharmacies are on the front lines of this shift, and are actually outpacing the manufacturing side of the industry. Shelving Design Systems is seeing a major impact among our pharmacy shelving clients in recent years, so this week we’re taking a closer look at why, and what it means for you.

Pharmacy may be a calling, and a noble one at that, but retail pharmacists overlook the “retail” side of that equation at their peril. While it’s true that traditional retailers could stand to learn a thing or two from the level of caring service delivered in pharmacies, we also shouldn’t neglect the key lessons we can learn from retail businesses that — on the surface, at least — are dissimilar to ours. After all, at the end of the day we’re all here to stay in business, and to do right by those we serve.

If you've followed our blog or subscribed to the Shelving Design Systems mailing list for any length of time, you know that we’re firm believers in pharmacy automation. That belief is not, however, built on faith or intuition; it comes from years’ worth of time spent on pharmacy design and observing the results. And we’re not the only ones paying attention. Although a study conducted by the National Institutes of Health on the effects of pharmacy automation wasn't exactly a page-turning thriller, it underscored the effectiveness of automation. Having answered our question a bit early, let’s take a closer look at how and why automation works — and whether it’s effective for small pharmacies as well as larger concerns.

Anyone who owns or runs a business likely realizes there are always ways in which they can do better. However, it’s difficult to identify areas of opportunity by mere intuition, and the difficulty becomes more pronounced the more complex the operation. With so many critical steps in your pharmacy workflow, it’s absolutely vital to understand each step in your workflow so you’re making the right improvements in the right order. This guide from Shelving Design Systems can get you off on the right foot.

If you’ve noticed a decrease in your pharmacy’s productivity, poor workflow could be the reason. Shelving Design Systems, a leader in pharmacy shelving and pharmacy solutions, has several ideas for boosting productivity and improving your bottom line.

Creating a welcoming, friendly, comfortable customer environment is perhaps the most important facet in running a successful community pharmacy. As owner or manager, you have the ability to provide your customers with what no large, chain-store pharmacy can match – personalized service to every individual entering your establishment. With a well-thought-out and properly implemented pharmacy workflow, built around providing the most excellent customer service and superior shopping experience possible, you can attract new customers into your store, retain the loyal customer base you've developed and generate an ever-expanding supply of referral clients. The secret is sterling service at every step.

From the customer's perspective, your pharmacy workflow is pretty much all about the speed and accuracy of your prescription filling results. It's not an uncommon complaint for a client coming into a pharmacy for a prescription fill to wonder, especially when they're the only customer at the drug counter, why it still takes 20 minutes (or sometimes longer) to receive their order. If it's a brand-new prescription or the person is a new customer in that pharmacy, the wait time is more easily understandable. But for a refill? Even if it's just the process of putting a new label on an already packaged medicine, without even any counting out of pills required, that 20 minutes seems more of a rule than an exception in many drugstores, especially the big chain pharmacies.

As owner/manager of an independent, community pharmacy, you've no doubt got lots on your plate. This is especially true during a time of increased healthcare reform and the added pressures associated with the need to maintain a high-quality (Star) rating due to its importance in your being included in Medicare Part D preferred networks and various commercial drug plans.

While your pharmacy basically exists in two parts – the front-end merchandising area and the rear-end prescription filling area – these two sides of your business are likely far from equal in their revenue generating capabilities. Most of your bottom line comes from what's happening in your back-end operation. While the front end remains an important part of the equation, it's for reasons other than basic income production. In fact, the front-end merchandising section of a typical community pharmacy is only responsible for about 10% of the revenue generated by the store.