The changing specialty pharmacy environment.

As with many industries, the Pharmacy business is becoming more challenging, not less. An always competitive market, shrinking reimbursement, and additional Accreditation requirements continue to put pressure on Pharmacies and specifically on Specialty Pharmacies to find new ways to compete.

As such a key question might be how a pharmacy might drive additional efficiency in their working environment. Efficiency can come in a variety of areas, here is an example of three areas we hear of the most.

Operations
Lowering operational hurdles in managing an ever-complex business ensuring a higher level of both patient and staff satisfaction.

Financial
Managing overall costs while delivering high-value services and capturing revenue quickly and finding lower-cost vehicles that enable margin enhancement.

Patient
Enhancing the patient experience thereby driving patient satisfaction and outcomes using current consumer-friendly technologies.

In addition to market pressures, there are fundamental requirements that a pharmacy must meet to provide successful services. In part, the ability to master the fundamentals is about having access to data and information that is almost always in a constant state of flux. Here are some examples.

Accreditation Compliance
Ensuring the pharmacy is in a proactive state of readiness including both current and upcoming Accreditation requirements.

Licensing Compliance (for both Pharmacies and Pharmacists)
Tracking and navigating vital business and employee licenses/ registrations.

Regulatory Compliance
Being aware of and documenting applicable action on federal and state legislation / regulatory requirements.

While the information necessary to comply with the items outlined above may be available, it is not available in an organized, structured, and consistent platform. Effectively it is not in one place, easy to access, and easy to use within a pharmacy’s current workflow process. Many organizations make honorable attempts to monitor and maintain the above requirements via a manual process (an excel file is not a digital solution). It is however both overwhelming and not cost-effective.

At D2 we believe it is time to “Modernize” this process using digital solutions to collect, organize and prioritize the necessary information. Our learnings suggest that having the right tools creates a meaningful impact on time, effort, and frustration by automating low priority but potentially high volume and highly important activity. At the end, additional efficiency better enables the organization to secure and keep the business and allows the Pharmacists to sleep better at night.