Top 10 things to consider before building your own pharmacy management system

All specialty pharmacies share some common goals: improve patient outcomes and increase patient acquisition, while also optimizing operations and efficiency.

Beyond that, consider what you know about your competitors’ operations, or how they are planning to gain a competitive advantage. Drawing a blank?

One of the most important decisions you can make for your organization is how to effectively implement technology. Your pharmacy management software can make or break your workflows, your efficiency, and your ability to best serve your patients.

Given the impact of this system, is it better to buy a commercial solution or build your own? What must you consider when making the decision?

It’s important to remember that your view of other organizations is limited. A commercial platform provider may have better insight across the pharmacy marketplace about key features that should be included in a management system to keep pace with emerging trends and technologies.

And that’s just the beginning. The following is an overview of the top 10 issues that must be carefully considered when deciding whether to buy or build a pharmacy software solution.

View our white paper for a more detailed explanation about each step.

• 1. Patient safety and outcomes

An effective pharmacy system reduces or eliminates the manual processes that increase the risk of errors and possible patient harm.

• 2. Complex disease and therapy management

Documentation is crucial for clinical interventions, and a system must support data entry, escalation processes, drug storage and handling information, and inventory functions.

• 3. Regulatory compliance and data security

Failure to maintain regulatory compliance, meet contractual obligations, and satisfy all data security requirements may result in financial penalties and lost revenue.

• 4. User experience and satisfaction

An application can’t be successful if no one wants to use it. An effective, persona-based pharmacy system can reduce employee turnover, and increase productivity, efficiency, and savings.

• 5. Industry standards and accreditation

Pharmacy operations must adhere to a myriad of changing rules and regulations. There are special programs and accreditations for processing ePrescriptions, carrying certain classes of drugs, and accepting credit card payments, just to name a few.

• 6. Industry knowledge and expertise

Pharmacies need dedicated experts with substantial knowledge of workflow, regulatory requirements, software expertise and more.

• 7. Technology planning and build out

There are a lot of moving parts in this phase. Decisions to be made include technology integrations, licensing requirements, and staffing allocations.

• 8. Tech implementation and ongoing support

Transitioning, scrubbing and converting existing data, as well as system testing, training and break-fix production happens here.

• 9. Interoperability and flexibility

An effective system will provide quick, easy access to healthcare data for authorized users, and easily integrate with programs to process ePrescriptions, claims submissions, credit card payments and more.

• 10. Technology innovation

A pharmacy management solution should not be a dormant application. It should have the ability to seamlessly adapt and scale to new innovations and regulatory changes.

This summary is just the tip of the iceberg. Buying a commercial specialty pharmacy software allows an organization to automate many of these steps, increasing speed-to-market.

For a detailed explanation of each of these key issues and the effort required for implementation, don’t miss our white paper.

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