Still Processing Paper-Based Prescriptions? Time to save time with Prescription Processing Software

Each month, big pharmacies are challenged with having to process volumes of faxed in prescriptions promptly and accurately. Errors in the manual handling of prescriptions orders can cause processing delays during the data entry phase and when time is spent fixing the data.  Sometimes forcing patients to queue up adding to consumer frustration and in some cases the speed of delivery of first treatment dose may not be administered fast enough. Most consumers depend on fast reliable access to their medications and can’t or don’t want to wait. That’s why you need a prescription processing software to automate and simplify your processes.

You should implement an enterprise fax server like FaxCore or RightFax and not simply a desktop fax machine or multi-function-device that includes fax, the retail pharmacy receives a fax image that can be stored electronically and automatically as well as being printed at the same time. The manual burden of collating and storing faxed prescriptions goes away because there’s no more paper – unless you want it (bad idea).  Replace your desktop fax machine with a single modern FaxCore or RightFax fax server that can service all your retail stores.  Once implemented, the prescriptions, through the prescription processing software, can be automatically routed to the store level and notify the operator of new incoming fax prescriptions – and once again – no more paper.

Next, manually keying in the patient prescription data into the pharmacy’s back-end system causes delays in filling orders. Manual keying in data takes too long and is inefficient.  Hospitals using EMR systems have not addressed the front end data entry issue of prescription orders either.

You should implement a document capture system that will serve as a prescription processing software like docAlpha to eliminate the manual data entry burden and ensure the data accuracy of hand and machine print-based prescriptions and prevents data entry errors.

docAlpha captures and processes documents from all sources as they enter the organization. If documents arrive via a FaxCore server, those documents can be automatically sent to docAlpha for immediate processing.  The key data can be extracted, classified, and verified, and released to the healthcare’s back-end system including networked pharmacy retail outlets.

Prescriptions and other documents can be automatically received by FaxCore or RightFax and accurately read by docAlpha to eliminate manual data entry – all together improving the speed of processing.

• Time to fill a prescription – hours to minutes
• Free’s up the Pharmacist to serve customers
• Compliance and audit-ability
• Business continuity
• Integration with existing EMR systems
• Quality Support

So we’ve eliminated the paper with a prescription processing software, but where are the fax images and meta-data going to be stored.  Not the fax server, it’s not a document repository and the document capture doesn’t store documents either – it reads them.  The next step is you should implement a document management system like Vasion.  Connectis will integrate the fax server, document capture system with the document management system so that all the content is available (automatically) and in one place for searching by any data criteria you choose to use.  The Vasion document repository will maintain a combined list of fax images and the metadata of patient details and prescription data.  A key benefit here includes ensuring you meet compliance and patient data security standards while keeping control of all content as it enters the organization.

Patients and Healthcare service providers both benefit. Time is saved, information is accurately extracted quickly and retained over time as needed and the potential for more personalized patient care is possible.