Retail Pharmacy - online services for pharmacists

[PhilD]

Hi All.

I'll be straight with you from the off - I work for an IT company (I'm not a pharmacist - treat me gently ) and I'm starting to investigate the types of things pharmacists need to do in their jobs and if we can offer services to help them.

To be clear we're absolutely not looking for ways of creating an online pharmacy but rather what kinds of online services can be produced to support the actual pharmacist in their day to day running of a pharmacy.

What I'm hoping you fine people might be able to provide me insight in to is:

Are there any parts of your job that a decent online service will help with? I'm probably opening a can of worms with the above, I just don't know! For example

• Is there information you frequently need that's paper based and would be easier to search for online?
• Are there services or software you currently use specific to pharmacy that could be better? Local enhanced services, product ordering, drug information catalogues?

Also some insight in to how processes differ moving from small independent pharmacists through to 5-10 pharmacy businesses on to the huge chains would be fantastically useful.

As an example (and I use this as an example as it's something that happens in companies in general) does the pharmacist in a small business get involved in purchasing, working out where to buy drugs from, maintaining stock, best before dates etc? If so I'm guessing that's an area for useful applications (there are probably many already...)

If the above is true what happens when you look at companies that run a number of pharmacies is this still the case or is it centrally managed by someone that's not a pharmacist. Knowing such things will help me begin to have a picture painted (by you) of what types of services pharmacists would find useful.

I appreciate the industry might be saturated with services and applications to help you in every way, but at this stage because I'm just learning the basics of what a pharmacist does it's hard for me to tell if that's the case

I hope I've not offended anyone by asking these type of questions.

Cheers, Phil

[johnep]

Eclipse system would allow you to specify wholesaler for each item. It would also allow top orders from one wholesaler while accumulating a monthly order for a short line wholesaler.
johnep

[LeftArm]

I work for a small pharmacy group and we have set up an intranet over VPN which we use to transfer forms and paperwork. We are developing it slowly and will eventually have pharmacies entering data (sales figures, script numbers etc.) each day so we have an up to date record available from head office.

If there is something that requires paperwork on a regular basis then we generally look to our system suppliers (PMR/EPOS) to provide them. For instance MUR forms, Responsible pharmacist records, fridge temperature records are all integrated.

There is a company called sonar informatics that is selling services to PCT to record Enhanced and Advanced service provision. They seem to be able to program most services into the system so pharmacies can enter the data (including individual consultations) directly into the system. The same data can then be used by the PCT for payments.

Our shops are responsible for their own ordering and stock control however we to restrict items to different suppliers and can centrally limit available brands etc.

I will be interested to see what other replies you get as this may help us to develop systems for our own users.