From Shelf to Cloud: Rethinking Pharmacy Inventory for the Modern Age
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by Dr. Alex Toth<br/>
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Dr. Alex Toth is the Owner of Plumsted Pharmacy in New Jersey and Co-Founder of InStockRx. <br/>
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If you are a Community Pharmacy Owner or Pharmacist in Charge looking for new strategies to improve your margins, this is for you.<br/>
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A Modern Pharmacy with Legacy Systems<br/>
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As pharmacy owners, we pride ourselves on running safe, efficient, and modern pharmacies that provide the highest levels of patient care. We have a heart and duty for serving humanity in the communities we live and work in. Every day we ensure our employees have proper uniforms, pharmacy staff are trained in barcode scanning technology, and we use workflows to achieve seamless prescription processing. I applaud every pharmacist that has achieved this level of efficiency.<br/>
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Despite these advances, there is still technological disparity when it comes to pharmacy inventory management. It is not surprising to see pharmacies relying solely on pharmacy technicians “walking” their shelves and marking bottles of “soon to expire” medications with little neon stickers. Shockingly, this practice is not limited to independent pharmacies; this inventory management madness occurs at the mid-size and the multinational pharmacy chains too. <br/>
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While Community Pharmacies aren’t alone in this, they can sometimes be further behind. The community pharmacy industry has its own terminology when it comes to handing inventory that is outside the norm of most retail businesses. For example, in the pharmacy we use terms like “perpetual” vs. “non-perpetual” inventory. While insiders of the pharmacy inventory know that this means we have an “accurate accounting” (of inventory) vs. “no accounting” of inventory respectively, in any other industry this would just be considered as either having accurate inventory vs. having NO inventory controls in place.<br/>
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Why do pharmacies manage their inventory this way?<br/>
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There can be several reasons why pharmacies are still in manual mode with inventory management, including but not limited to: <br/>
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Lack of good options for efficient monitoring and reporting <br/>
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Competing priorities and projects <br/>
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Reluctance to change. <br/>
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How challenging is inventory management?<br/>
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A common myth that many pharmacy managers have is that getting control of their inventory is impossible to do and the only way to do it is by having a 100% perfect perpetual inventory. This in no longer the case. There are cloud-based solutions that are available to help pharmacies step into the modern era, including real-time integrations with its pharmacy management system (PMS) and wholesalers, and reporting capabilities to help manage inventory.<br/>
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For example, InStockRx achieves this is by completing these integrations and understanding the characteristics of your pharmacy inventory from both the buy and the sell sides of the equation. Once an analysis of a pharmacy’s inventory is completed, we provide pharmacy owners/managers with real time data about what is on their shelf and where problems may exist with their inventory. These valuable insights help pharmacies make smarter decisions about their inventory, provide better service for their patients, and help save money.<br/>
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The Rx for change: Leverage modern tech solutions<br/>
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The InStockRx Dashboard offers a quick way for pharmacy owners (and staff) to proactively identify and manage problem inventory sitting on their shelves. Owners & Operators can see in seconds what would have taken staff hours labeling bottles with those neon expiration stickers I mentioned earlier. Additionally, it provides users with a real time accounting of the value of inventory sitting on shelves and within their “local pharmacy network.”<br/>
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Using automated inventory tools can help eliminate human error when staff are checking the pharmacy shelf for expirations. Targeted approaches such as the InStockRx dashboard help to identify problem inventory and prevent costly expirations. Now pharmacy staff members can confidently walk into their pharmacy and immediately pull that problem inventory from their shelf.<br/>
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Ready to get started?<br/>
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If you are ready to get started with this process for FREE with InStockRx, click here to sign up. It is easy to get your pharmacy integrated with our platform and get you onboarded so you can realize savings faster. <br/>
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by Dr. Alex Toth<br/>
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Dr. Alex Toth is the Owner of Plumsted Pharmacy in New Jersey and Co-Founder of InStockRx.