While legislation to broaden hub and spoke dispensing for community pharmacy has been delayed, it is still expected to be introduced this year. More and more community pharmacies are preparing for this new way of working by looking at the options available to them.
Here our Chief Commercial Officer, Ashley Kilgas, explains why it is crucial pharmacists opt for a solution that was designed specifically for hub and spoke which can scale up as their business grows.
"Community pharmacy in the UK is undergoing a dramatic shift. Clinical services for patients are now front and centre of the job description for those working in pharmacy. Yet despite this there is still an expectation for pharmacies to continue dispensing increasing volumes of medication with the same, and in some cases reduced, workforce. It is no wonder that an increasing number of pharmacies are looking at hub and spoke to release capacity in store.
Over the past few years there has been a growing trend of forward-looking pharmacies, who have been in a position to implement hub and spoke solutions. As market demand has grown, so has the variety of solutions on offer. But none of these solutions, nor combination of solutions, were designed specifically for hub and spoke. There are some great options out there for very small scale set ups, but it is important to remember that for traditional robotic dispensing systems or PMR workflows, hub and spoke is simply an “add on” – it’s not the core solution they were built to do.
FLOWRx by Centred Solutions is different. It is the only solution currently available in the UK market that was designed specifically to be used for a centralised dispensing pharmacy hub with branch spokes end to end. The combination of sophisticated hardware and software has been designed and built by pharmacy hub and spoke experts who have poured years of expertise and knowledge into creating the best in class solution that can scale easily.
Centred Solutions was born when members of the founding team were drafted in as consultants to resolve issues and optimise one of the first large chain pharmacy hubs in England. Having successfully achieved that aim our team spotted an opportunity to help the UK pharmacy market – specifically those groups without multi million pounds budgets or huge warehousing facilities. We realised that there was no specific hub and spoke solution that was affordable, scalable and drove high adoption in stores. So we built one.
We used our knowledge to create FLOWRx which is the only end to end hub and spoke software and automation solution. Our solution has been designed purely with hub and spoke in mind by experts in this field.
And we’re not just experts in hub and spoke technology – because hub and spoke is more than just a system. Our engineers are experts in hub and spoke workflows, data management, complex integration and governance. Our solutions team are trained pharmacists and pharmacy logistics experts who have spent many years working in a hub and spoke pharmacy environment before joining the team. Their experience in this area is unparalleled.
We have been providing hub and spoke solutions for several years now and our FLOWRx solution is tried and tested in a variety of hub and spoke environments. We have a range of case studies that can evidence this as well as a detailed ROI model which shows our solution can save pharmacy spokes a minimum of 4 hours per day and will pay for itself within two years. We have a range of must-see hub and spoke sites across the UK so you can see the solution operating in a real-world environment.
Finally, our FLOWRx solution has also been reviewed in both hubs and stores as part of GPHC inspections and passed with flying colours. Here’s an example of what the inspectors had to say:
Hub Pharmacy: “The pharmacy used an automated system throughout the assembly process to support it in supplying medicines, which meant there were few manual assembly processes completed by team members…..The assembly process relied on automation and barcode technology to track each step……To ensure only one person's medicines were placed in a basket, the system illuminated a light above the basket on a shelf, in which to place the stock. The system alerted team members if an intervention was required by a pharmacy trained team member through the use of an orange light above the basket. There was no way of operatives overwriting the need for an intervention as pharmacy professionals were required to log-in to complete these interventions.”“And most people’s repeat prescriptions were now assembled off-site at one of the company’s hub pharmacies. This meant the pharmacy team could spend more time talking to people about their medicines and deliver other services.”
“Most dispensed prescriptions from the hub were returned to the pharmacy the following day and were supplied in a sealed bag with the person’s details embedded on the bag.”
“This process was fairly new to the team and team members discussed the procedures and training they had undertaken ahead of completing the process. Team members spoke positively about the change and identified how it had supported the team in managing workload more effectively.”
If you are thinking of going down the hub and spoke route then I would urge you to go with the experts from day one to ensure your pharmacy business is future-proofed."
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