Background:
PayLess Drug Stores, Inc. Long-Term Care (LTC) Pharmacy is a very progressive LTC Pharmacy. The founders were able to license a respected retail pharmacy name and apply its excellent service and quality of care to LTC. Darwin Pond, Vice President of Operations and one of the founders of PayLess LTC remarks: “Now, as people enter community-based or nursing home care, they can welcome back an old friend in the prescription drug delivery business – a friend they know and trust.”
PayLess now provides LTC pharmacy services including pharmaceuticals and consultant pharmacy to over 12,000 beds. They provide these services to most of the LTC spectrum of care settings in the states of Oregon and Washington including skilled nursing facilities, assisted living, group homes, foster homes, and prisons.
PayLess LTC had a corporate vision of how the prescription workflow processes should work in order for employees to be efficient and happy while providing excellent customers service. Darwin and his Chief Information Officer (CIO), Jeffery Rutz, set out to achieve this vision using technology as a base for efficient LTC Pharmacy workflow.
The first step was to develop an application to control the prescription filling. They nicknamed this back-end application “Workflow”. Workflow and their pharmacy information system (HBS) brought efficiency to the back-end process but did little to automate the front-end of the process. The front-end process of triaging prescriptions was still problematic. As the pharmacy grew order entry became a limiting factor to expansion. Pharmacy technicians and pharmacists were shuffling paper and labels from one desk to another. “The noise level was extremely high and fifty (50%) percent of a persons hour was spent running around processing paper.” stated Darwin.
DocuTrack has allowed us to grow and maintain the high level of quality and customer service that is the reputation of PayLess LTC. With DocuTrack...I now have a true picture of the total operational workflow...
Solution:
Jeffery started researching off the shelf software that was designed for automating the paper based front-end of their business. He found a promising application but it was designed for another industry. “The vendor basically did not know anything about LTC pharmacy” remarked Jeff. “My people did their best to force fit the application into the LTC environment but it just did not work.”
PayLess was introduced to Integra’s LTC pharmacy workflow product, DocuTrack. Darwin remarked, “The concept of DocuTrack automating the front-end was very exciting, but would it fit into the PayLess system with our varied and unique customer base and our back-end Workflow application?” PayLess did an extensive due diligence investigation on both the Integra and DocuTrack. They made the decision that DocuTrack, a product that is dedicated to the LTC industry would be the solution they needed.
When I am selling PayLess LTC to potential customer care providers...I now demonstrate DocuTrack as an advantage and why they should contract with PayLess LTC.
Results:
"I was very impressed with the LTC pharmacy knowledge of the Integra Group and especially the account manager." Darwin commented. The account manager came into the facility and visited every department, took notes and asked questions about workflow. "I even noticed that she would remind our people about steps they might have missed in their discussions of workflow processes." Darwin continued, “When the Integra Group people returned with the draft application they were very close to our process requirements even down to the color coding of our departments like the color folders we had grown accustomed to in present system. The fitting of DocuTrack into some of our habits was a great assistance in training."
Once DocuTrack was implemented the paper storage demands at Payless dropped from 40 boxes of paper stored every three months to 15 boxes every five months. "We still have some processes to be automated," Darwin remarked. But, "DocuTrack has allowed us to work on futures and now we will get to a point where we do not use paper much faster."
Payless has also noted a drastic reduction in the man hours needed to complete major Board of Pharmacy audits. These audits once consumed 100 or more man hours which were reduced to 5 man hours.
Many other benefits noted where streamlining and reduction in man hours needed to process STAT orders and a reduction in orders getting filled twice due to lost documentation.
DocuTrack has allowed PayLess LTC to operate their business the way they know is best to satisfy their customer base. “DocuTrack has allowed us to grow and maintain the high level of quality and customer service that is the reputation of PayLess LTC. With DocuTrack and our internally developed back-end Workflow application I now have a true picture of the total operational workflow without walking around querying my people, interrupting them, and adversely affecting their efficiency. When I see a problem coming via my DocuTrack reports and I do not see a positive response, I will proact by calling the supervisor and ask them how they are going to prevent the problem. When I am selling PayLess LTC to potential customer care providers on the advantages of contracting with PayLess LTC I now demonstrate DocuTrack as an advantage and why they should contract with PayLess LTC.” summarized Darwin.
November 2006