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It's the people who make the job. From both sides of the pharmacy counter, your patients and pharmacy staff set the tone and tempo for your pharmacy operations. In the case of your patients, there are plenty of ways to brighten and enhance their health journeys.
With the help of modern pharmacy technology, you can provide new services in novel ways. Accordingly, patient segmentation can offer a new lens to look at your patient care.
Patient segmentation helps your pharmacy understand your patients on a new level, informing how you care for them and shaping your pharmacy’s offerings.
Read on to learn how you can modernize your pharmacy’s services through patient segmentation.
Per Health Affairs, patient segmentation “divides a patient population into distinct groups — each with specific needs, characteristics, or behaviors — to allow care delivery and policies to be tailored for these groups.”
Patient segmentation allows you to look at your patient base in different ways, beyond their name, date of birth, or even their fill history. It lets you combine seemingly unrelated pieces of patient information — such as socioeconomic factors, therapeutic classes, and basic demographics — to interact with your patients on a more personalized level.
Personalized patient care is the name of the game and patient segmentation gives you a crystal-clear road map in becoming a bonafide healthcare destination.
As mentioned earlier, patient segmentation lets your pharmacy look at its patient base from a more refined perspective. Elements like chronic conditions, socioeconomic factors, and personal demographics give you an idea of what your pharmacy should focus on.
The operational advantages of patient segmentation start with the obvious operational advantages such as identifying patient demographics. This will streamline your pharmacy’s workflow efficiency through identifying language barriers and geographic logistics.
For example, having an elderly patient base means you might want to stock up on shingles vaccines or high-dose flu shots. You should also consider centering your pharmacy inventory to tailor chronic conditions.
Does a chunk of your patient base come from emergency rooms? Adjust your pharmacy shelves accordingly to answer that specific need.
Perhaps you noticed that a certain number of patients have difficulty getting to your pharmacy, whether due to transportation or mobility issues. A pharmacy delivery app or service might be the way to remedy that pain point. Not only does that break down logistical barriers, but it also adds another valuable service to your pharmacy’s repertoire.
Patient segmentation is a win-win for your pharmacy and patients. It gives your pharmacy ways to enhance its services while catering to the specific needs of your patient base.
Now, let’s see how your pharmacy technology can help you with patient segmentation.
Your pharmacy technology, namely your pharmacy software, plays a huge role in your pharmacy operations. When it comes to patient segmentation, work with a pharmacy system that helps you look at your patient base from a new lens.
PioneerRx’s Patient Categories feature lets your pharmacy put its own logic into the system through various pieces of criteria (see the above sections). Your pharmacy’s patient segmentation approach can be pretty simple or really complex depending on how specific you want to be. When it comes to PioneerRx, the more categories the merrier!
Using Triggers is especially helpful in this regard. A trigger can identify opportunities to enhance the patient experience that your pharmacy staff might miss otherwise.
This is going to allow the system to identify every opportunity because if you were manually catching, you are definitely missing opportunities.
This kind of patient segmentation strengthen patient relationships so identifying patient needs based on their drug regimen and therapeutic class is a no-brainer.
So, get creative about sharing your logic with your pharmacy software. Combine seemingly unrelated pieces of criteria like social economic factors, therapeutic classes, and basic demographics to find new ways to interact with your patients on a personal level.
Check out this clip form the Beyond the Scripts Pharmacy Podcast where Cencora’s Antoun Salib details how patient segmentation led his pharmacy to provide an unlikely — you might say, “puzzling” — group of products.
For more ways PioneerRx can enhance your pharmacy’s bottom line, read our blog, “7 PioneerRx Features to Grow Your Pharmacy’s Profitability.”
Patient segmentation is not just a strategy — it's an approach that lets your pharmacy provide even more personalized care. By leveraging modern pharmacy technology, you can unlock new insights about your patients, helping you meet their unique needs more effectively.
Whether it's adjusting your inventory for specific health conditions or introducing innovative services like delivery, patient segmentation helps you create a more responsive and personalized pharmacy experience.
With the patient segmentation approach, you position your pharmacy as a certified healthcare destination, ready to enhance the health journeys of your patients.
Take the next step, explore your patient data, and discover how patient segmentation can transform your services and strengthen your community ties. Your patients — and your community — will thank you for it.
