Pharmacy Manager’s journey towards a flexible approach to Dispensing

Our vision is to create a true digital Pharmacy business solution. With this in mind our teams are set up for success as they are oriented around nine development streams which represent the critical needs of our pharmacy customers, from small independents through to supermarkets and larger corporate group sites.

Meet our Dispensing Product Expert Simeon

Simeon Green is the Product Manager at Cegedim with responsibility for our Dispensing Team who are currently busy with our second-generation dispensing modules in Pharmacy Manager.

“Having a background in Pharmacy as a trainer almost 7 years ago meant time ’on the shop floor‘ with our pharmacy customers, which gave me really good insight into the daily pressures of working in a dispensary. I also observed where technology really could and should be taking the burden away from the most important pharmacy resource – hard working and knowledgeable people.

So, when the opportunity to take the reins and think differently about how the dispensing journey could evolve for the needs of pharmacy today, but also tomorrow, I jumped at it!”

In our Product Discovery we follow a “Listen, Act, Improve” approach, which means observing first hand and really listening to not only to our customers, but the wider pharmacy market to understand critical pain points.

What inspired the new Dispensing Journey?

Pharmacies have seen dispensing margins squeezed and their staff needing to do more with less. Their remit now includes delivering patient services whilst increasing throughput and efficiency. It’s become clear that a flexible approach to dispensing, allowing users to perform key parts of the dispensing process in the way that works for them is a big help. This works depending on a whole host of factors such as standard operating procedures, workload, stock management pressures and even seasonal changes. Current PMRs often force a linear process for the dispensing journey, requiring staff to follow a rigid process order.

We believe that technology should be able to flex to meet the needs of a pharmacy that shift from day to day – If prescriptions have to be clinically checked upfront before staff can start dispensing then what happens when the pharmacist is busy with a consultation?

Re-imagining Pharmacy Dispensing

The re-design and build of the new core dispensing journey within Pharmacy Manager is well underway, building towards a Modular process, allowing pharmacies to dispense prescriptions in a flexible and non-linear way. Equally important as providing dispensing modules that flex to meet the needs of the pharmacy, is HOW we deliver these improvements into a live product and existing workflow that is extensive.

We have committed to never disrupt your critical business operations in Pharmacies day-to-day and so as we evolve the solution we will also be releasing new features in a phased and sympathetic way. And of course, making sure we continue iterative discovery and continued improvement, ensuring we’re capturing the end user voice along the way.

New Dispensing Homepage

As a starting point, we’ve been trialling a new Dispensing Homepage with a small number of our Pharmacy Manager customers over the last few months. This Homepage will provide an improved view of new unprocessed prescriptions which require dispensing and new filtering and searching tools to quickly and easily prioritise tasks based on critical prescription criteria.

For example, do you prioritise all Acute or Delivery patients first? Using the new Prescription Filtering in Pharmacy Manager, users can quickly identify and begin processing these prescriptions in a few clicks.

This is just the first step, moving prescription information into a new module that is supported by modern technology and a snappy interface gives us the perfect launchpad to give access to the new modules which will follow as part of our regular monthly updates into the live system for all users.

Integrated Clinical Check Module

Next is our new Integrated Clinical Check Module which is accessed directly from the Prescriptions Homepage.

This will give pharmacy staff the flexibility to complete a Clinical Check without dispensing the prescription and using the existing Dispensing screen, freeing up pharmacists. By allowing them to Clinically Check prescriptions up-front, they can then focus on other critical tasks and value-added patient services. As with dispensing, this will not be an imposed workflow – smart filtering tools and signposting allow users to see the clinical check status and progress them accordingly.

We are future proofing Pharmacy business!

Other systems boast intelligent checks and the good news is so will we, but the difference in our approach at Cegedim is that we have re-designed and re-built the technology as a platform for continuous innovation as pharmacies evolve.

Our solution is flexible and agile in meeting the changing operational challenges and we are giving customers the choice of when and how you perform a clinical check.  

This is in addition to the core dispensing functionality we are continuously validating and iterating to ensure that we provide a pharmacy business solution that helps our customers to adapt and thrive in a challenging market.

The great news is that we’re planning to release BOTH of these major updates in Pharmacy Manager Release 15.0, which should land in your store in September, so stay tuned!

So what’s next for our Pharmacy Business Solution? Planned for the last quarter of 2022 is to bring real intelligence and decision support into Pharmacy Manager, which means automated Clinical Checks saving you even more critical staff time!

Get involved in our discovery panel

We’d love to hear your feedback and if you’re interested in being part of our discovery and Beta panel, where you can directly influence the direction and development of Pharmacy Manager, we’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with us on productfeedback@cegedimrx.co.uk

We’ll keep you in the loop with regular updates on our progress and we can’t wait for you to get your hands on Pharmacy Manager 15.0!

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Cegedim Healthcare Solutions Product Discovery and Development

These outputs of our Dispensing focussed development are just one of our product development workstreams on the roadmap. We’re actively developing our solution across nine critical pharmacy priorities; Dispensing Services, Automated Dispensing and Fulfilment, Stock and Order Management, Pharmacy Intelligence, Patient Management and Services, Pharmacy Services, Core Technology, Data and Regulatory Demands.