Achieving Operational Excellence with Emporos
A leading cancer treatment and research center known for its dedication to providing cutting-edge care and compassionate service has an outpatient pharmacy that serves its adult and pediatric patients.
The institute’s outpatient pharmacy partnered with Emporos, an award-winning pharmacy commerce solution, to enhance their operational efficiency, ensure patient safety, and improve service quality. Utilizing the Emporos point of sale (POS) system, MerchantSoft, the pharmacy significantly reduced costly medication errors, improved patient wait times, and automated time-consuming manual processes.
Initial Challenges with a Legacy POS System
Before implementing MerchantSoft by Emporos, this outpatient pharmacy used a rudimentary POS system typical of most pharmacies. The system couldn’t integrate with the pharmacy’s pharmacy management system (PMS), lacked safety and compliance features, and required significant manual support from pharmacy staff.
As a result, pharmacy staff struggled with several challenges, including:
- Safety and Compliance Issues: The old system lacked safety checks and identity verification features. “It was kind of like driving a car without a seat belt,” said the Pharmacy Manager. Pharmacy staff had no way to confirm patients’ identities on the register or determine if the wrong prescription was being handed out to the wrong patient.
- This resulted in 20-30 potential medication errors per month. In some cases, the wrong patient would take home the wrong medication, requiring the pharmacy to inform the affected patients of the mistake and absorb the cost of dispensing and shipping new medications.
- Manual Inventory Management: The limited functionality of their POS meant inventory management was largely manual and error-prone. “The old system didn’t allow us to track inventory effectively,” said the pharmacy’s Senior Purchaser. “It was literally just a place to sell things. It didn’t identify what specific item was being sold or allow us to search for an item via the register.”
- Additionally, it was difficult to identify the existing quantity of a certain item or predict when it might need to be reordered. If the medication price changed, the old system wouldn’t update to the latest price, requiring staff to verify the correct pricing and manually adjust.
- Frequent Downtimes: System downtimes were common – happening multiple times a month. “We would often lose connection, needing to restart the server, which could take up to 15 minutes or even longer. This caused significant delays and frustration,” the team lamented. The pharmacy frequently dealt with backup of customers, long wait times, and operational disruptions.
- “At some points where it was down for a prolonged period of time, we would just give patients their medications, take a phone number, call them to ring them out later on,” said the Pharmacy Manager. Pharmacy staff would then have to contact and retroactively bill patients. Out of 100 patients, 1-2 cases would never be recuperated, resulting in lost revenue.
The Impact of Emporos MerchantSoft
To overcome these challenges, the outpatient pharmacy adopted MerchantSoft, a POS purpose-built for pharmacy workflows. MerchantSoft possessed much-needed functionality that their previous system lacked, including an integration with their PMS.
The following are just a few achievements that have resulted from our partnership:
- Reduced Medication Errors: MerchantSoft includes built-in safety checks that significantly reduce the risk of medication dispensing errors. “By requiring pharmacists to enter the patient’s date of birth, we can now ensure that prescriptions are dispensed to the right patient,” the Senior Purchaser highlighted. The system’s ability to verify patient details, even with similar names, and automatically flag any discrepancies has been crucial in minimizing mistakes. With Emporos, medication errors have been reduced by 94%.
The Emporos Point of Sale helped reduce medication errors by 94%
- Improved Controlled Substance Compliance: The pharmacy’s previous POS was built before pharmacies were required to save patients’ ID information for controlled substances, so it lacked ID capture capabilities. As a result, pharmacy staff would have to sell the controlled substance, manually go back into the system, and enter identification information. “With Emporos, it’s good to be able to scan the back of your driver’s license and save that information,” the Pharmacy Manager said. “It makes the process of selling controlled substances seamless and compliant.” This Emporos capability has reduced manual workloads and the potential for errors while helping improve accuracy and compliance.
- Shorter Lines, Happier Patients, and Increased Transaction Volume: The intuitive interface of MerchantSoft has significantly reduced transaction times, resulting in less hassle for patients and more satisfied customers. When medication pricing changes, the Emporos POS will automatically update to the correct amount. “Transactions that used to take five minutes now take only two,” the team said. “We used to always have a line. Now, queues happen, but they’re not constant and we get through backups faster.” As a result, this cancer center now enjoys a higher transaction volume compared to their previous POS system.
“Transactions that used to take five minutes now take only two. We used to always have a line. Now, we get through backups faster.”
- User-Friendly, Minimal Training Required: This customer frequently hosts rotational students, meaning they’re constantly training new pharmacy staff and require a POS that’s easy to use. “Some of our students will work once every two weeks. When first starting out, our old system was always trial by fire.” “But Emporos is something they can easily catch on to. Understanding and utilizing the system is pretty straightforward and easy.”
- Efficient Inventory Management: MerchantSoft has transformed how this pharmacy manages its inventory. The system tracks inventory levels in real-time, allows staff to search for specific items, and generates reports instantly. “We can now track our inventory and record sales seamlessly through the system,” said the Senior Purchaser, “This has helped reduce the risk of running out of essential medications and helps us make informed decisions.”
“We can now track our inventory and record sales seamlessly. This has helped reduce the risk of running out of essential medications and helps us make more informed decisions.”
- Reduced Downtime: MerchantSoft’s reliable integrations and connection has minimized downtimes, ensuring continuous operation. “Unlike the old system, which frequently went offline, the Emporos POS ensures a stable connection, allowing us to operate without interruptions,” noted the IT team. Patients are no longer stuck waiting in long lines, and pharmacy staff are no longer forced to come up with manual workarounds or track down patients for retroactive payment.
Transform Your Pharmacy
The partnership between the institute’s outpatient pharmacy and Emporos has been truly transformational. MerchantSoft’s focus on safety, compliance, and streamlined operations has significantly enhanced the pharmacy’s efficiency and patient experience.
By reducing errors, minimizing downtimes, and ensuring regulatory compliance, Emporos has helped this customer maintain its high standards of patient care.
Interested in modernizing your pharmacy to improve the patient and staff experience? Emporos offers a range of pharmacy commerce solutions – including our self-service patient pay, lighted will call, and more – that make healthcare simple and safe.
Schedule a demo here or email [email protected].
