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In response to
"It’s a combination of more people going to the doctor, a lack of staff, and a goofy process change."
by
Tim
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The process change:
Posted by
Tim (aka othertim)
Nov 3 '21, 19:46
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Old method: Technician prints label, gets drug, scans drug to confirm correct item. Counts drug, pours into vial, labels vial, places in basket for pharmacist to verify. Pharmacist scans label, scans bottle, pours pills into another tray to verify product, pours pills from that tray back into vial, bags prescription.
New method: Technician prints label, gets drug, scans drug, counts pills into tray, inserts tray of pills (or full bottle) into a box that takes a picture of what's been counted. If full bottle or box, take additional image of lot number/expiration. Label vial/product, place in bag. Pharmacist then just views the images to verify product.
The pros: there are no longer 100s of baskets full of prescriptions waiting for the pharmacist to be verified. (finding something in that pile that needed to be checked was often a nightmare). The verification by the pharmacist is faster. The images are saved, so if someone claims they didn't get enough, we can pull it up later on to confirm what they got.
The cons: the production by the technician takes 2-3 times as long, because the imaging takes longer than simply counting out the tablets and putting them in a vial. It's also WAY WAY longer if the product is a box, like an inhaler, as multiple images need to be taken, and this company does not believe in bandwidth. (Which makes the "but it's already in a box" comment even worse. Next customer who says that will get handed a random item off the shelf and then I say "oh, the right box? Yeah, that'll take some time.")
It's a fine idea in theory, it just coincided with technician help hitting a low point. Hiring is, of course, impossible at the moment.
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