We do approx 1200 items a day although not via EPS. We have been EPS enabled since May '07 and the Dr's in our health centre started issuing bar codes in Oct '07.
We use Proscript and have found EPS very slow. When a Rx is scanned it takes 10 secs to 'download' and 10 secs to 'upload' when finished. Whilst this is happening nothing else can be done!
I have also timed myself and my colleagues labelling Rx manually and via EPS(we did a variety of Rx with varying Numbers of items) Overall it was 3 times SLOWER using ETP. If we did every Rx via ETP i don't think we could manage with our opening hours(9-7) to do them!
I have spoken to our software supplier about this and they said it was the NHS ETP side which was slowing things down. I have emailed via the Connecting for Health Website and have received a response that 'it is being looked into'
If you want to email your concerns the address is,
cfh.eps@nhs.net
Another problem i have encountered is that if a Dr. puts 'mdu' as a direction then that is what comes out on the label unless we correct it. Again another thing that slow the process down!
So much for progress!
