Pharmacists came together 16th – 17th October 2022 at Birmingham’s NEC to connect with colleagues and learn about exciting innovations across the industry. Celebrating 15 years of The Pharmacy Show this year, the event was jam-packed with educational content, with over 200 speakers, across nine theatres, including Positive Solutions own Mark Merry, Product Strategy Lead and Matt Ellis, Hx Programme Lead.
Their session, in the Technology Theatre on Sunday morning, was entitled ‘Beyond PMR – A Technology Ecosystem to Transform Your Pharmacy Business’. They discussed some of the challenges facing Community Pharmacy at the moment; the decline in core income revenue, the shift to deliver more services, and how to better engage patients, before looking at how technology can help the sector in these areas.
Driving Efficiencies
Little change has taken place in dispensary workflows over the previous 30 years, whilst the digital revolution has taken place, pharmacists are still trapped in the glass box checking scripts. Mark and Matt encouraged pharmacists to reimagine what they can do and use technology to speed up their processes. With technology, pharmacists can benefit from; assisted clinical checks, accuracy checking and script queue filtering to name just a few easy wins. Mark and Matt also pointed to automation to help drive more efficiencies in your pharmacy, such as utilising robots, Hub & Spoke, digital paperless picking or our exciting Handout app all of which speed up the dispensing process, whilst improving safety.
Drive Services
With 43% of independent pharmacies suggesting that a lack of time is the biggest barrier to delivering more services, it’s important to first asses the efficiencies that can be delivered using technology so that services can become the every day for your pharmacy. Once ready to drive more services, there are two critical factors to consider; patient engagement and environment. Mark and Matt posed some questions for pharmacy owners to think about; Do patients know what services you deliver? How do they book services with your pharmacy? Do they trust you as a clinical provider? Does your consultation room reflect a clinical environment they may expect?
Patient Engagement
Patient Relationship Management (PRM) is key to patient engagement and many pharmacists still don’t have a solution to help support them with this. The USP of community pharmacy is community and how close you are to your community will affect your future opportunities and success. Mark and Matt pointed towards using a patient app to support your connection with your community, which will allow patients to order repeats, book appointments, track delivery and essentially make them stick with your pharmacy long term. Remember that, just like us, some patients don’t want to collect in person or speak on the phone and they want solutions which are simple and easy to use, so ensure you are choosing an app which works for both you and them.
Positive Solutions were not only showcasing some of the exciting new developments to their well-known Analyst PMR at the show, but also launching five exciting new products on their Hx platform. This modular, cloud-based interoperable ecosystem takes healthcare technology to a new level. Hx products are accessible anywhere and device agnostic, releasing clinicians to use our technology wherever and whenever they wish. Four of the five new products are designed to integrate to Analyst too so all users, existing and new, get to benefit.
With hundreds of demos taking place over the two days of the show, the feedback from pharmacists was incredibly positive, many of whom can’t wait to get their hands on these new products.
Positive Solutions have come a long way since they last exhibited at The Pharmacy Show back in 2019, with new products being delivered at pace and a new look and feel for the company, as it enters 30 years in business – it’s an exciting time for the company, technology and healthcare professionals like you.