Case study: Ani Patel, pharmacist and owner, Savages Pharmacy, Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex

Since partnering with Omnicell to begin their journey into pharmacy automation, Ani Patel’s team has seen many positive changes. One year on from installing the Omnicell VBM 200F pharmacy blister card packaging machine, the business has grown, and patient care has been enhanced.

Savages Pharmacy has been a pillar of community life in Burnham-on-Crouch since 1924. “As a forward-thinking pharmacy, introducing automation to our dispensary practice was the next logical step,” says Ani. His goal was to improve patient experience, ease pressure on staff and expand the business to reach more of the community. After attending the Pharmacy Show in 2019, Ani decided that the solution most fitting to the pharmacy’s needs was the Omnicell VBM. 

He explains: “The new technology has benefitted patients, pharmacy staff and healthcare professionals. The speed, precision and wide-ranging abilities of automated dispensing technology prevents the pharmacy from feeling stretched, and staff no longer feel over-burdened. This is especially important given the relentless impact of Covid-19 on pharmacies. We have seen exponential growth over the last year, and we’re comfortable expanding the business, taking on new customers and serving more of the community.

“Introducing automation produces an auditable trail of the prescription process. There is accountability at each stage of the process due to multiple levels of logging and tracking users, times, dates and actions. Pharmacists can see what has been issued on the system, so the risk of error is significantly reduced, and feedback has been very positive. Consequently, word has spread, and we have taken on new customers - something we would not have had the capacity to do without the help of automated technology.

Ani says that the decision to automate should not be taken lightly because of the financial and operational considerations. “We had to erase all previous knowledge of pharmacy workflow practices and re-learn processes that worked in harmony with technology,” he says. “We had to completely change our way of thinking and operating after many years.”

His advice to pharmacy managers is that it’s very important to reassure staff, who may be worried about technology or redundancy. “We have found that the synergy between knowledgeable staff and pharmacy automation generates a much more productive environment, and staff now appreciate the technology,” he says.

Comments from the pharmacy’s team include: “It’s a great system which has allowed us to be very dynamic and reactive to situations” and “it has allowed us to improve our time management and efficiency. Before installing Omnicell technology and changing the way we work, we were not aware of how much time we were losing.”

The idea of introducing technology into the workflow of a pharmacy can be daunting, and Ani’s experience is that the whole team must be committed to the vision and on board with the benefits, “because it will take the focus of every staff member to drive progress forward.” 

Case study: Tom Bisset, superintendent pharmacist, Ward Green Pharmacy, Barnsley

Tom Bisset has been working with Cegedim since 2020 on the development of new Pharmacy Manager PMR features, including reviewing beta versions of summary care record integration (SCR 1-Click) and real time exemption checking (RTEC).

Tom communicates regularly with the Cegedim team about the features and functionality of the system. “It’s definitely a two-way process,” he says. “It’s all very well understanding how a product works in the lab or development environment, but it is also important to know it works in the hothouse of a pharmacy.

“Cegedim has become far more responsive over the past year. I was keen to find out what else was being developed and if I could help with the progress of Pharmacy Manager. Within days of receiving the beta version, I was tweeting about how great SCR 1-click is.”

SCR integration has become a vital part of ‘business as usual’ within pharmacies because of Covid-19, and with 1-click integration using Pharmacy Manager, pharmacists have immediate access to all the information they need – from the status of a prescription to a patient’s medication history. 

“When the shutters came down in March 2020 and patients were struggling to get hold of their GPs, they turned to pharmacists for help,” Tom says. “They wanted to know if the script was in the pipeline and if there had been any changes. Many individuals were distressed; others were volunteers collecting for people they didn’t know who were shielding. Pharmacy Manager’s 1-click integration came at exactly the right time, speeding up the process for finding this information.”

SCR integration also helps the pharmacy to manage medication for patients moving around the system – from hospital to nursing home and back home. 

The shift to electronic prescriptions has been beneficial to pharmacies, but has created issues around checking for exemptions. Even if a patient knows their own exemption status, many more prescriptions are now being collected by friends or community volunteers. With Pharmacy Manager’s RTEC feature, exemption information is kept up to date and available in real time. This means that pharmacists have all the information relating to a person’s exemption status to hand, including the reason for the exemption. With Ward Green now using e-scripts 95 per cent of the time, RTEC has become a standard feature of its day-to-day dispensing.

Tom is also actively encouraging colleagues to update Pharmacy Manager with the monthly releases as soon as possible to avoid missing out on important features and benefits. “As the NHS and the demands on pharmacy evolve, you need to have a system that supports you,” he says. “As the national contract changes, because of Cegedim’s community collaboration, I have more confidence that Pharmacy Manager will continue its monthly improvements and match our changing needs.”