Enabling Pharmacies to deliver more Clinical Services

We want to help our customers be amazing clinicians by supporting them in the delivery of clinical services as we appreciate this is a key source of revenue for Pharmacy. We’ve achieved this by creating a solution based on our product discovery – walking in the shoes of our customers and listening to their business needs.

Cegedim’s Pharmacy Services platform was established in response to the NHS long-term plan which outlines a future where pharmacists will be the front door of healthcare, with more clinical services sitting within the pharmacy remit. With reduced dispensing fees and squeezed pharmacy revenues there was an urgent need to look at driving real efficiencies in the delivery of clinical services, making this key function as simple as it could be for time pressed and stretched pharmacy teams.

We feel Pharmacy Services works the way our customers need it to work, it’s available on any device, anytime, anywhere and so offers the pharmacy flexibility on where and how they deliver services. Furthermore, the system was designed to eliminate manual tasks and re-keying of data through intelligent automation and critical integrations directly into the core PMR and NHS systems.

This seamless integration into Pharmacy Manager means the pharmacy team can be assured they will never miss a service opportunity or the revenue it generates again. For example, the NHS 111 referrals will be seen as service opportunity alerts directly in Pharmacy Manager, whatever part of the system the user is in. This provides a super simple workflow for the team to acknowledge the opportunity. The pharmacist can then follow this opportunity, matching the referral to the patient when they arrive in, or they can call them to offer advice and support.

With a fully joined up and integrated user journey, the pharmacist can deliver a great patient experience and be assured the claim for payment will be fully automated. This provides extra revenue for the pharmacy but it also generates other retail opportunities such as Flu Vaccine Services or patient health checks but perhaps most importantly it helps to build positive relationships with patients, bringing in new ones and retaining others through trust and reliability.

We all navigate to retailers where we have had a great experience – the same is true of pharmacy and that’s why we at Cegedim want to help them be more effective retailers.

So no more missed referrals and no more missed claims - It’s a truly automated and integrated digital system.

Types of Clinical Services

Luke Bolton, Product Manager (Pharmacy Services team) at Cegedim explains the services available to pharmacists through the Pharmacy Services Platform.

"There are a range of clinical services that pharmacies can now provide to patients. Our aim has been to simplify how pharmacists record these services so they can deliver more – providing excellent patient care, whilst also automating critical tasks like the NHS claim, that way we can ensure the pharmacy always receives payment for the services delivered."

Community Pharmacist Consultation Service

The first service available on the platform is the Community Pharmacist Consultation Service or CPCS. The CPCS is a referral based service where a patient has contacted NHS 111 for advice and then been directed to the pharmacy.

For instance, a patient may have run out of medication over the weekend when the GP is closed or have a minor condition that can be managed with over the counter medication. Following a consultation with the NHS 111 operative, if its decided that the concern can be dealt with by a pharmacist, the operative will send a referral to a pharmacy.

The patient will then attend the pharmacy who will deliver the appropriate service to the patient after seeing the electronic referral which will include all the notes which are digitally shared between systems. Once the pharmacist has completed the referral, the information will be digitally shared back into NHS systems for recording, GP visibility and also for payment.

Flu Vaccination

The second clinical service that our system supports is Flu vaccination. Eligible patients can attend the pharmacy for their annual NHS or private flu vaccine. This is a huge seasonal opportunity for pharmacists to generate income and we would encourage pharmacies to maximise their potential revenue by carefully considering how the right technology can support really efficient delivery of this high volume service.

This Service was completed following extensive Product Discovery which allowed us to really understand the pain points currently associated with delivering the Flu service and we worked hard to develop a solution that works the way our customers need it to work. We simplified the steps needed by the pharmacist and made this service capture fast and intuitive on a platform which is available anywhere, any time and on any device.

Pharmacists asked for auto population, telling us these small adjustments – prepopulating basic details, really add up to significant time savings throughout the day and we delivered. We have also enabled the form to save the default vaccines detail, ensuring that batch numbers don’t need to be inputted on each and every vaccine.

New Medicine Service

Hot on the heels of Flu is the New Medicine Service. Again we’ve approached this by developing a workflow that’s intuitive and responsive to support the pharmacist in administering this service. The New Medicine Service is offered by the pharmacy when dispensing a prescription for new medication to treat a long term condition. To ensure the patient fully understands the prescribed medication, how to take it correctly and how to identify potential side effects, the pharmacy can offer a series of personal consultations. This vital service is a significant and consistent source of income for the pharmacy but importantly also helps ensure patients see maximum benefit from their medication and reduces pressure on the GP surgery by effectively handling patient queries. Integrated with the Pharmacy Manager PMR, dispensed medication details are automatically populated along with the associated long term conditions, removing rekeying effort and ensuring the pharmacist has all the relevant information to hand when completing the consultation, in person or over the phone.

Blood Pressure Check Service

Next on the product roadmap is the Blood Pressure Check Service. This is a much newer service, launched to pharmacy by NHS earlier this year. Any patient over 40 not currently diagnosed with hypertension can be offered a free blood pressure check by the pharmacy. GP surgeries can also signpost patients to pharmacy, freeing up valuable GP appointments. Patients displaying higher readings can be invited for further monitoring with an ambulatory blood pressure monitor. The broad eligibility criteria means this service offers a significant opportunity for pharmacy and will drive the early detection of hypertension. Our product which is still in the discovery phase will enable the pharmacist to record the critical detail, share the information with the patient’s GP and submit the claim for NHS payment (in line with NHS BSA API development.)

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