One of the major trends during the pandemic has been the increased role of pharmacies in primary care. Because they were largely unaffected by closures, more and more people came to see their pharmacy team as primary resource and causing more pharmacies to work more closely with other healthcare professionals.
This increased involvement with patients and the wider healthcare network presents unique opportunities to increase the collection of data that can help you learn more about their purchasing habits and make smarter decisions for your pharmacy, leading to better inventory management and pharmacy team efficiency – all of which can improve cash flow.
One way to use data is to stock smarter and only get the drugs you need. Generally speaking, 20-25 percent of a pharmacy’s stock is excess inventory, which becomes a problem as expiration dates loom. By levering data, you can improve a pharmacy’s operational efficiency by:
- Focusing on items that make up the bulk of your pharmacy’s sales
- Limiting drugs that don’t sell frequently
- Reducing workflow bottlenecks by tracking prescription processing time and the number or prescriptions waiting for pick-up at any given time
Data can also be used to help optimize patient care by supporting medication adherence, compliance, and overall patient outcomes. We have seen that many patients do not perfectly adhere to their suggested prescription schedule. Data on when patients get their prescriptions allows pharmacies to track late and missed refills, as well as determine medication usage patterns
To learn more about using data to improve business operations and other lessons learned from the pandemic, download Pharma Logistics’ handbook – COVID and Cash Flow
