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Since the start of the pandemic, the team at PioneerRx has been listening to what our pharmacies need and racing to release new feature updates within our pharmacy software.
Independent pharmacies have had to quickly adapt to an entirely new way of running their business, and in addition to regular operations, prepare for the administration of COVID tests and vaccines as well.
As the situation has continued to develop and change, PioneerRx is listening to what our customers have to say and supporting them in all of the important work they are doing to protect their communities.
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“During the pandemic, PioneerRx has been very helpful,” begins Marc Ost. He is the partner and co-owner of Eric’s Rx Shoppe in Horsham, PA. “The big thing that PioneerRx has really helped us with is just improving things on a weekly basis.”
Eric’s Rx Shoppe has become a key COVID vaccine provider in its community. Since their team began offering the vaccine in the beginning of January, they have administered over 7,000 doses and counting.
“We ended up being one of the first independent pharmacies in the entire state to receive the vaccine,” says Ost. “We thought it was important to do it – not for a financial reason, but just so we could do our part to help.”
They were lucky enough to find a vacancy in a nearby shopping center where they set up a space with 3 private vaccine rooms. Throughout the process, Ost notes that they have been in communication with the state on a regular basis.
“It’s been ingrained in our process to make sure that we are involved and that we always know what is going on,” he says.
The COVID-19 vaccination workflow for pharmacies has been continuously changing as times goes on. Improvements have been made to make the process more efficient and sustainable.
“Today, processing vaccinations is a million times easier than it was 12, 13 weeks ago,” Ost emphasizes.
Within their PioneerRx pharmacy management system, new shortcuts, features, and overrides have helped to save time and increase accuracy.
“It sounds silly, but even just having to go into one less field [in the software] – if that saves 15, 20 seconds per patient, then multiply that by a thousand patients a week – and it adds up,” he explains.
Pharmacies are working in overdrive to keep up with the demand for vaccination while still running their regular business, so every second counts. Finding ways to simplify processes has been one of the major initiatives for updating the PioneerRx software. Data fields continue to be updated so that PioneerRx users always have the information they need right at their fingertips.
Marc Ost also describes how the Custom Reports and Forms feature has helped his pharmacy save time in the patient intake process. “With the Report Design feature, we are able to put our custom intake form into PioneerRx,” he says. “When a patient comes in, we can press a button to print the intake form and it’s already prefilled with all of the information in their [PioneerRx profile] – which has made the process very easy.” PioneerRx allows customization throughout workflow so your pharmacy can access your data in whatever format you need it most.
Another feature that has just recently been released in response to COVID-19 vaccination is the Bulk Patient Process capability in PioneerRx.
Marc Ost was one of the key individuals who reached out and worked with our clinical development team to develop this feature.
Pharmacists like Ost began noticing that a majority of people they are vaccinating are not current patients, so they have been taking on the hefty task of manually entering each of these individuals as a new patient in their PioneerRx pharmacy software.
Now, PioneerRx users can upload patient information in bulk using an excel file or .csv file.
“The most cumbersome part of the process was just adding new patients in the system. The Bulk Patient Process feature has saved us…I can’t even tell you the amount of time. It is really a tremendous, tremendous time saver,” emphasizes Ost.
Pharmacies can collect their patient information as they go in an excel spreadsheet, then simply upload that into the system at the end of the day, and it will automatically create new patient profiles for each person.
“My partner and I would take home stacks of papers and we’d be up all night just entering patients,” Ost says. “Now, we know that however we enter a form is exactly how it’s going into our PioneerRx software.”
Pharmacies like Eric’s Rx Shoppe are truly making a difference in their communities. They already have a million tasks on their to-do list, so saving time in workflow is a necessity.
Whether they are saving time so they can focus on vaccinating, or simply so they can have time to get some rest at night – PioneerRx pharmacies are streamlining their workflow with our new features and updates.
It’s an ongoing process, but each step is important in supporting our pharmacies throughout this pandemic.
