Does EPS do high volume?

[Web Ferret]

What is the maximum number of scripts anyone has actually managed to dispense over EPS in one day?

My PCT is having a meeting re EPS in two weeks but in my experience the systems are way too slow.

I regularly work in 600+ pharmacies and have tried the EPS on both link evolution and pharmacy manager. Both their helpdesks quote "allow up to a minute for each script" so for say 250 forms thats over four hours just downloading whilst you can't process anything else!

One helpdesk advised me not to scan a "wad" of scripts but to scan, wait to download, dispense then scan the next...

So anyone doing high volume on EPS?

[Jeff]

Originally Posted by Web Ferret

I regularly work in 600+ pharmacies and have tried the EPS on both link evolution and pharmacy manager. Both their helpdesks quote "allow up to a minute for each script" so for say 250 forms thats over four hours just downloading whilst you can't process anything else!

Not true - needs more than one workstation though - one can queue the collected EPS scripts while the other(s) label the live scripts.

No idea of volume as just the odd days locum - but marginally busier than I like.

Jeff

[NexphaseNorthy]

I remember doing some tests in a branch a while back - the GP surgery next door to the pharmacy was producing barcoded scripts so there was a constant flow, including homes patients. If I recall rightly, we scanned and labelled around 300 scripts, mostly with three or more items on, in four hours.

I didn't find that waiting for the scripts was to bad - I scanned in batches of 5 to 10 scripts.* Two things which slowed me down was waiting for the scripts to finish labeling / endorsing and the patient matching. Depending on your PMR system, if a GP uploads a prescription for one of your regular patients but they have an extra initial in the name, or they have put the address in to the surgery software in the wrong place (eg first line on second line of screen), then when you download that prescription your computer will suggest creating a new patient, as there is nothing which matches on your system (although Scottish pharmacies seem to keep track of CHI numbers, English / Welsh pharmacies don't seem to need to record patient NHS numbers). So if you're not on your toes, you could find duplicate patient records which you have to merge later on, not to mention the additional step of setting up a new patient.

* Jeff is right- you will find it easier if you have two terminals - although your system should not stop you from dispensing a 'non' EPS script while you wait for messages to download.

[Web Ferret]

All the branches I have experienced have two terminals and one had three.
So any advance on 300 items...

[JonF]

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!

[Zoggite]

Originally Posted by JonF

So much for progress!

You want progress? move to Wales!
Wave goodbye to Rx charges and ETP, Hello sheep!

[Web Ferret]

Thanks for that.
This is confirming my theory that the national specifications that all the software suppliers are using is inadequate.
I wanted some other opinions before I contacted CFH as it could be just me having bad experiences as I work in busy pharmacies.

So far everywhere I have been is of the same opinion that to label via EPS is a lot slower than what is happening now, and this isn't a training issue either.

This speed issue would have significant additional cost implications for pharmacies in more terminals and additional staff to do the same volume of dispensing.

[NexphaseNorthy]

It will be interesting to see how the phase two messages look. With any luck the schemas used will be more tightly controlled when the systems (both GP and PMR) get accredited. This will hopefully help reduce the number of 'incompatible' yet technically valid messages floating around on the spine (my experience is that messages generated by TPP System One GP system can cause issues). Along with that 'central' piece of work, it would be good to see PMR system suppliers being more intelligent with the way that they handle messages as they are received (ie checking for blank spaces in addresses, then checking the 'nicely' formatted address / details with the local record) to get more accurate patient mapping.

[Petey]

I find EPS totally unusable.

We have about 30 or 40 scripts come each day under the collection service.

I can usually have all of those labelled and ready to dispense in the time it takes to for my colleague to batch scan 5 or 10 coded ones, wait for the bloomin things to arrive, fiddle about with the whole address issue, and then inevitably have to correct most of the doses because the system doesnt recognise what the doctors written.

Utter waste of time in its current state im afraid IMO.

[JonF]

Originally Posted by Petey

Utter waste of time in its current state im afraid IMO.

Couldn't have put it better myself!!

If any of you email CFH and get a reply please let us know on this thread! As i said earlier i'm still waiting!!