Pharmacy ordering gets a major upgrade

Medication orders have to be precise, but what happens when you have to order medicine for a Family Care Center? Or an Urgent Care Center? It's such a common thing you might imagine there was a ready-made process we could adopt. It turns out there was not, and there most definitely was not an app for that.

So we made one.

Marketing/PR developer Obadiah Williams worked with Pharmacy Team Members Tonya Pope and Mary Dean, and Outreach Team Members Kayla Murphy and Julie Hall to create a new custom, web-based application to handle pharmacy orders in this environment. Users at an outreach center can order medications, see its cost and get confirmation that the order was received. On a different level, outreach managers can track their medication costs in real-time.

Outreach clinical quality coordinator Julie Hall says, "The credit really goes to Obi for making this program shine. It looks nice, it's easy to use and the features are incredible. It helps make everyone more fiscally responsible."

In the Pharmacy, the team can view and approve any order and track their work. Pharmacy supervisor and purchasing agent Tonya Pope says the new system really helps those ordering medications. "One big addition we included is being able to see the cost of the order," she said. "Everyone is very inventory-minded. Now the clinics can look at their medication costs when they make the order. They can look with their provider for lower-cost alternatives if they choose."

Pope says another new addition is expanded communication. The new system confirms to the ordering clinics that the Pharmacy has picked up the order, and shows where it is in the process. The previous system didn't have this, which led to breakdowns in communication when medication didn't arrive when expected.

This app actually is an update from an older version - built by many of the same people years ago. The new process is streamlined and much more efficient, using new web-based systems that also help run our Intranet at teamkdhs.com.

Pictured from left: Outreach team members Kayla Murphy and Julie Hall; Marketing/PR developer Obadiah Williams; Pharmacy team members Tonya Pope and Mary Dean.