Product Spotlight By Tony Felix, RPh

ScriptPro’s Service

l Rio Health Center (El integrated into the telepharmacy system. Rio) was established in 1969 and incorporated as Adopting the a private, non-profit Telepharmacy System health center in 1973. El After putting the system in place, our ERio provides community-based primary staffing model did require some adjust- services to all residents of ment. For every shift, specific pharmacists Pima County with a special emphasis on and technicians were assigned to the tele- the underserved, and is the largest responsibility. While the tele- provider of medical services to the unin- pharmacy process did not change our sured and Medicaid populations in practice, per say, it did improve our ability Pima County. The pharmacy depart- to serve who have access-to-care ment provides patients with five in- challenges. We can now provide pharmacy house pharmacy locations. Our phar- services remotely to our patients, whereas macy practice software system allows prior to implementing the ScriptPro sys- patients to visit any El Rio pharmacy tem, we could not provide traditional location to fill their eligible prescrip- pharmacy services at the El Pueblo clinic. tions. The pharmacy department pro- vides service to over 72,000 patients, Using the Telepharmacy System filling approximately 380,000 pre scrip - The ScriptPro telepharmacy service did tions per year. In addition, we offer var- not change our process of drug prepara- ious drug discount and compassionate LLC courtesyPhoto of ScriptPro tion and verification, nor did it particularly At the central, or support pharmacy, a pharmacist verifies the prescription by care programs. viewing on screen the original written prescription, the ’s affect any other pharmacy workflow, so it information, the filled vial, and the drug image before transmitting approval. was fairly easy to implement from a prac- Finding the Best System tice standpoint. In order to use the system, for Our Patients we did need to perform some remodeling to the remote site to be in compliance The majority of our patients are women, children, young families, and the eld- with the Arizona Board of Pharmacy rules and regulations. erly. For these special population groups, transportation to and from a commu- Since its inception, we have been using the system to train our technician staff nity pharmacy often presents a significant challenge. Since we wanted to be able on proper telepharmacy practices. Thus far, the system has been received posi- to reach these patients more efficiently, we decided to review the available tele- tively by staff including pharmacists, technicians, and . Most important, pharmacy systems with the aim of making our prescription medications available we have received positive feedback from our patients and are realizing an increase at our El Pueblo satellite clinic site. We determined that a telepharmacy system in prescription pickup compliance. would improve prescription pickup adherence, patient safety, and ultimately, dis- ease outcomes. Financial Impact We performed due diligence on three possible telepharmacy systems, and our While purchasing and implementing the ScriptPro system has resulted in a greater pharmacy and IT director ultimately decided on ScriptPro’s system. The ScriptPro monthly expense for telepharmacy services, we anticipate a break-even point system robot prepacks tablets and capsules into bar coded containers, which are being obtained as use of the service continues to increase. I then sent to the El Pueblo clinic for filling prescriptions. The clinic electronically transmits prescription orders to El Rio pharmacists who screen, approve, and Tony Felix, RPh, is the pharmacy director of El Rio Health Center in release them back to the clinic for filling. Pharmacy technicians at the clinic use Tucson, Arizona. ScriptPro telepharmacy scanning stations to select prefilled containers and pack- aged items (e.g., inhalers and creams) and label them with instructions for patient WHERE TO FIND IT: use. As a safety check, the technicians capture electronic images of the tablets, cap- ScriptPro LLC ...... Circle reader service number 13 sules, container, and label and send them to El Rio pharmacists for approval. Every or visit www.scriptpro.com El Pueblo telepharmacy patient is counseled by a pharmacist through a video link

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