In today’s pharmacy, it is crucial to minimize waste and maximize profitability. With ever-declining reimbursements, you need to run your community pharmacy as efficiently as possible. This means an independent pharmacy owner must be constantly in the know and understand where there may be room for improvement. It could be employee time wasted or overspending on inventory, but the key to maximizing your efficiency is to utilize the tools within your pharmacy management system to pinpoint the problems. The best pharmacy software systems include a multitude of reports and analytics to help improve efficiency in your pharmacy.
How can I build efficiency among my employees?
Time is money, and if an owner can maximize their employees’ time, it helps to build a more efficient pharmacy. To understand how to do this, you must first understand where your employees may be falling short. Integrating a multi-stage workflow in your pharmacy not only helps organize employees, but it also helps increase filling efficiency and reduce errors.
The top pharmacy systems not only enable multi-step workflow capabilities, but empower owners with the ability to analyze how their employees are performing at each step in the workflow process.
Through a variety of different reports within the pharmacy software, such as employee processing time, average filling time, and even hourly employee logs, owners can obtain details on where mistakes may be being made, where bottlenecks are occurring, and how to retrain staff to better manage their time. The information in these reports can help owners and managers implement additional safety checks, such as barcode scanning, turn on requirements for entering manager/pharmacist overrides, and even shed light on who may be a star employee.
How can reporting help with pharmacy inventory?
Inventory is, without a doubt, an independent pharmacy’s biggest overhead. While you want to be sure to keep common popular medications in stock, you also want to be sure to avoid overordering, sitting on stale, outdated items, and unnecessarily stocking high-priced items that could be special ordered. Your pharmacy software can help you manage appropriate inventory levels through a variety of customized analytic reports. The best pharmacy systems will offer inventory forecasting, so you can easily see fast movers and popular drugs to always have on hand, slow movers that are worth stocking only small quantities or even special ordering when needed, all to help you establish optimal inventory levels. These reports can help you when creating wholesaler returns, so inventory can be pulled before it expires. All of your ordering, re-ordering, and inventory levels can be easily managed by utilizing the EDI capabilities that tie your pharmacy management software into your wholesaler ordering systems.
How can reporting help expand my pharmacy network?
The most robust pharmacy management software will include reporting tools that focus on profitable prescribers and patients. Being able to determine which providers in your area are sending in the most patients or prescriptions will help you focus on strengthening relationships with doctors and clinics. Likewise, having a handle on some of your most profitable patients will help you and your staff focus on providing the most stellar customer service experience. Working with local physicians and educating them on the adherence tools and conveniences you can offer your mutual patients by harnessing the technology within your pharmacy software will ensure better working relationships.
What if I need custom reports?
Only the best pharmacy management systems will support your need for creating custom reports. These reports vary from dispensing reports, to financial data, and employee analytics, but provide a comprehensive overview of your business. Datascan’s pharmacy software offers a web-based reporting system that synchronizes your pharmacy and point of sale data so you can create your own customized reports with ease.
Final Thoughts
Reporting is a powerful tool that provides pharmacy owners with insight into their business. Through a variety of reporting templates and customized reports, owners can gauge how their employees are performing, how their inventory is being managed, and how efficiently their pharmacy is running. One of the most important functions of your pharmacy management system is robust reporting to aid in the success of your independent pharmacy.
Kevin Minassian is the President of Datascan Software. Under his leadership, the company rapidly expanded to provide pharmacy management software on a national level. Over the last 15+ years, he has ensured that Datascan has continuously evolved to offer innovative solutions for independent pharmacies while still offering world-class customer support. He is passionate about helping independent pharmacies to remain competitive, achieve success, and offer the very best service to their communities.
