Best Pharmacy Software

What is Pharmacy Software?

Pharmacy software is a kind of automation system which automates all the process and daily activities that take place in a drug store. Online Pharmacy software is now available as web-based, desktop-based as well as app-based which is known as the pharmacy app. Software is said to be the keystone of an ideal pharmacy.

With a large number of medicines of different combinations made by a number of different companies and brands, it is necessary for the pharmacists today to have a top pharmacy software which helps easy and quick dispensing of medicines and eases the highly complex and tiring inventory management task.

Best Pharmacy software is a boon to the drug store business. Online Pharmacy software systems help pharmacists in keeping accurate and up-to-date records of patients and their doctor wise reports, billing information, adequate stock of medicines, accurate drug stocks, expiry dates, and order management.

How Can Pharmacy Software Help to Manage Medicine Business

A pharmacy software helps in managing the characteristics of certain drugs such as potency, toxicity, and side effects.

With one click, the best pharmacy software displays the availability of the drugs, the expiry, its inventory, and the price. This makes pharmacy inventory management easy. The pharmacy management system provides an array of pharmacy tools such as POS system, billing system, and dispensing system for all the pharmacists.

It incorporates barcode scanning, pharmacy billing system, automation system, inventory management, e-prescription, and information storage

It’s a solution that handles very complex situations and large audits from customers, suppliers, manufacturers, and other stakeholders. The pharmacy solutions provide the medical store with complete end-to-end operational requirements and provide enhanced and comprehensive drug store services.

Pharmacy dispensing software is a solution that integrates a number of different capacities and functions. The pharmacy dispensing software must accurately manage complex billings in real-time, keep a detailed track of dispensing data and health, maintain and track drug inventory, manage the complete workflow and generate a large number of reports.

The pharmacy solution with all the tools and automation reduces the time spent in the prescription entry, order processing, and management. The e-prescription tool is an exclusive and an important feature in solutions as e-prescriptions are more reliable and do away with any discrepancies and errors that might arise due to illegible handwriting.

The batching support is a feature of a pharmacy solution that dispenses the drugs based on the date of manufacture or expiry date. This increases the efficiency and performance of the drug store as one is able to keep track of the medicines.

The alert system enabled in a pharmacy system alerts the pharmacists and the staff of the inventory running low, the drugs to be dispatched, new orders and requirements.

An ideal pharma ERP software should integrate a number of pharmacy tools that the pharmacist uses during the day. They include various drug interaction details and its side effects, the dosage of the medication, lab reports, and data.

A retail pharmacy software system a piece of technological brilliance that makes the life and process of the medicine retail business easier and also enhances its patient’s health and relationship.

Pharmacy Software Features

With the government concentrating on quality and improved health care, pharmacists have a thriving business opportunity in the field. Having a quality Pharmacy management software with the latest tools incorporated is imperative to a good pharmacy system.

The staff in your pharmacy accounting software must not only deal with the patients but should also manage the inventory, billing, expiry dates of the drugs, and many more.

Before deciding on the best pharmacy software, the pharmacists should look for the following important features in the pharma ERP software.

The Must-Have Features of a Good Pharmacy Management Software are:

1. A Good Technical Support

When you are buying pharmacy management software, you’re establishing a lifelong relationship with the vendor. It is essential for them to provide good customer support with well-trained employees who are very responsive and clear with their instructions.

2. Stable Software

The pharmacy software offered should be stable and reliable. It should be able to bear a large load of data and should not hang, freeze or crash in between operations. The main aim of obtaining pharmacy billing software is to save time and make processing and workflow simple. A slow, unresponsive software defeats this purpose.
Therefore, it is essential to have a stable and large data resilient pharmacy management system in place.

3. An Attached Scheduler for Transparent Workflow

Top pharmacy software should have well defined and clear workflow. When a prescription order comes in, the pharma ERP software should be able to tell the day it came in, the number of prescriptions, when to be dispatched, the number of prescriptions filled, and soon to be filled. A good pharmacy management software should be able to perform this in a few clicks.

4. Key fields

The database system in pharmacy management software should be able to support key fields. The key fields can be the inventor name, category, code, generics, unit buying, and unit selling price among others. This makes the cumbersome process of entering a new inventory it to the accounting software easy and simple.

5. Batching support

A good pharmacy software should be able to batch the inventory by its manufacturing date and dispatch it like-wise.

• FIFO - First-in-first-out: In this type, the drug which came in earlier comparatively will be dispatched first by the pharmacy software.

• LIFO - Last-in-first-out: If your preference is for the pharmacy software to dispatch the latest medicine first, then this option can be chosen.

• Expiry: If you want the drugs to be dispatched by the software based on the expiry date, the inventory expiring first will be dispatched.

• Manual: Some pharmacists prefer manually selecting the drugs. This also can be done but there is no pharmacy automation system in place in the pharmacy solution as everything is done manually.

6. Alert system

Your pharmacy billing software should be able to send alert messages and triggers when the inventory is depleting. The pharmacy management system should have an inventory threshold and when the inventory goes below that threshold, the pharma ERP software should be able to alert the pharmacist.

Benefits of Using a Pharmacy Management System

Implementing pharmacy solutions has enabled the pharmacies to improve their clinical and financial performance and help serve their patients better. Some benefits of the pharmacy management systems are:

1. Better Customer Health, Better Business Health

Use of pharmacy management software can reduce the time pharmacists and the staff members spend in performing a task like checking the customers insurance, managing finances, counting the drugs, organizing and putting them in bottles.
The time saved in this can be utilized to increase the business effectively and improve the outcome and health of the people. Most of the drugstore activities are reimbursements, so more time can be spent on generating revenue for the company by automating the entire process.

2. Pharmacy POS System

The POS systems provided by the pharmacy management system gives a real-time sales report.

3. Efficient Customer Service

The employment of a good pharmacy system improves transaction and customer service. It helps scanning and easy dispensing of drugs and reduces discrepancies in sales.

4. Inventory Management

The software enables very effective inventory management. It can keep a record of the products that are running low and helps to reorder the drugs. It also keeps track of time during the day in which certain products are in demand and can arrange displays at that time.

5. Time Management

A lot of time spent on accounting, sales records, inventory management, and accounting is saved by using the pharmacy system and helps in the management of many discount programs, loyalty programs, and advertising thereby aiding in increased sales and profits.

6. E-Prescribing

The best pharmacy software system enables e-prescribing of medicines which eliminates the errors that may creep in due to handwriting or the delays caused by faxing.

7. Reminders

One of the major benefits of investing in a good pharmacy solution is its unique feature to send triggers and alarms in the form of text messages and emails when the inventory is running out of medicines, if the date of expiry of certain drugs is nearing, or it reminds you when the drugs are to be dispatched using the pharmacy dispensing systems.

8. Information Storage

The pharmacy management system stores crucial supplier and manufacturer data. It is very vital for a pharmacist to keep track of such information which will keep you updated on the supplier and the manufacturer of the medicines you’re selling.

9. Complete and Accurate Drug Interaction and Other Databases

The pharmacy management system has an integrated pharmacy automation system that detects interactions between drugs which reduces the chances of adverse drug reactions, a safety mechanism for a patient’s life and protects the pharmacists from legal and medical entangles.

10. Reporting

The pharmacy management system provides pharmacy solutions to calculate the revenues generated by sales every month. A pharmacist needs to be informed of the sale of every unit of an inventory, the drugs disposed of, and the damages incurred. This ensures that an accurate and up to date account is maintained, hence no transaction can go unnoticed.

11. New Drug Information

The pharmacy solutions automatically update all the newly introduced drugs on the market, it provides information on the effectiveness, price and manufacturer information on medicines.

Why Your Pharmacy Needs Pharmacy Solutions?

With rapid technological development and technology being implemented in most fields, it’s essential for technology to intervene in pharmacy management solutions. Pharmacies should use quality solutions in order to become more integral to the health care system.

Instead of just dispensing drugs and prescribed medicines, pharmacies are also expected to be responsible for the well-being of a patient. With a huge number of drugs in the market, the pharmacists today must employ very robust pharmacy solutions or drug store software which aid in ease of drug dispensing, inventory management, accounting, and tracking.

A good drugstore should have a retail pharmacy software system such as the medical store automation system. The pharmacy automation system takes care of all the mechanical aspect of such as the handling and distribution of drugs.

The solution with the pharmacy automation system, not only provides an efficient package and careful handling of medicines but also has an added barcode verification for added accuracy and safety. Drugstore automation solution reduces the burden of the medicine inventory thus helping in making more profits.

Having a solution in drug store reduces the number of people that need to be employed to run the medical store. With packaging, handling, accounting, and tracking are taken care of by the automation software, the number of men needed is comparatively less which means the salaries to be paid are less and the savings are all profits for the pharmacy.

A powerful pharmacy management system provides a complete end-to-end solution for easy business management. Pharmacy Management Systems which are otherwise known as the pharmacy dispensing system is now being exclusively used in the United States.

New pharmacy tools are being added continuously to the best pharmacy software to improve the working of the business. The pharmacy POS System (Point of sales) is now integrated with mobile and iPad based platforms as apps. These pharmacy apps enhance the business immensely. A pharmacy app enables direct connection with the customers thus enhancing customer loyalty and customer retention.

The overall efficiency has increased enormously, largely because of technological inventions like pharma apps and systems. The pharmacy solutions today have a number of pharmacy tools and features such as barcode scanning, robotic dispensing, real-time processing, and pharmacy POS system which improves the functioning quality of the drug store as a whole.

Pharma business plays a vital role in drug distribution and is also responsible for the patient's health. Retail Pharmacy software gives accurate drug information, its adverse reaction, time for which it should be consumed which enhances customer satisfaction and improves the business.

A number of software have the pharmacy dispensing system and billing software which makes drug dispensing and billing easier. The pharmacy billing system calculates all the bills accurately within a fraction of a second and also enables easy application of discounts and offers.

This eliminates any scope for errors to creep in which is inevitable with manual calculations. With constant inventions and discovery, the retail pharmacy software system enables the pharmacist to keep up to date the new drugs on the market, its uses, price, and cost.

Best Pharmacy solutions have become an integral part of the medicine retail business because of its ability to improve business solutions, maintain loyal customers, and in turn reap maximum profits.

How Do Pharmacy Tools Help Manage Billing And Inventory?

With pharmaceuticals being a vital business in healthcare, efficient and accurate billing and inventory management are very crucial from both operational and financial points of view.

The pharmacy inventory management system reduces considerable transport costs, procurement cost, shortage cost, and acquisition cost. Inventory management requires continuous planning, organizing, and maintaining stocks.

The software sends an alert message to the pharmacist when the stock is reducing which prompts the pharmacist to place more orders for that particular drug store software. Also, there are pharmacies that have a minimum prescribed limit for the drugs.

When the number goes below the minimum prescribed limit, then the products are to be ordered. When a prescription is filled, the inventory of that particular drug or medicine is automatically updated.

The software has something called the vendor managed inventory system that gives the supplier full control over the goods and services. In this system, the supplier monitors the inventories using his employees or gets the inventory information from you. Without any request or initiation from the pharmacist, the stock is automatically filled. This makes it easier for the pharmacist and removes the huge inventory management burden off his head.

This also strengthens the relationship between the retail pharmacy software vendors and the supplier thus proving beneficial to each of their own businesses.

The other system is called the Order-up-to policy. In this system, the supplier ups the inventory of the customer to its maximum capacity during every request and delivery. The request for the refilling of the inventory is made by the pharmacist.

Every time a prescription is filled, the inventory of the drug automatically goes down and this is reflected in the system. Similarly, every time a drug comes in, the inventory is updated. Pharmacy inventory management also enables information storage about drugs and expiry.

The labels and tags of the medicines can be scanned using a barcode scanner and the manufacturing and expiry information of the drugs is stored.

So when a drug is nearing the expiry date, an automatic alert message is sent to the pharmacy which will prompt the pharmacists to dispose of expired drugs. This makes management of inventory efficient and error-free.

Pharmacy inventory management is very crucial to the pharma business as much as the billing. The system has a pharmacy billing software in place which makes billing accurate, easy, and reliable. Billing and accounting can be a tedious and highly risky task as any mistakes would incur huge losses.

The pharmacy billing software thus aids enables easy billing. The software enables the inclusion of discounts, offers on the bill and gives the final amount which otherwise might be a tedious task for large bulk orders. Some customer who is unable to pay large amounts opt for EMI options or want to avail insurance offered by the hospitals.

The pharmacy software solution enables easy processing of EMI and insurance so that maximum benefit is reaped by the customers and also makes sure your medicine retail business does not lose out on any profit or face any losses due to unaccounted transactions.

Top Pharmacy Software: Future Trends to Watch

Prescription, dispersion, management, and administration of medications is rapidly changing the healthcare sector in the United States of America.

The opportunities for pharmacists have grown immensely and their skills are highly valued to develop and bring to the fore a value-based health and care system.

1. Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Artificial intelligence is set to make a huge impact on the cost and time required for drug discovery, by reducing them considerably. Machine learning systems and supercomputers are getting huge investment flow by some major pharmaceutical industry giants as it will help predict models for some very promising compounds.

Scientists believe that once in place, the robots will be able to manufacture new drugs in very less time and at a fraction of a cost. AI is all set to make a huge impact on the pharmacy software vendors sector.

With a huge amount of data present in the world and a large number of medicines and drugs being prescribed, data mining of prescriptions and medical records is possible. AI will also enable precision treatment design and management of medication.

2. Drug Serialization

With the counterfeiting of drugs and adulteration being a huge problem and a threat to the industry of pharmacy, the US has created two acts in that regard. The Drug Quality and Security Act (DQSA) and the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCA). The serialization of drugs is a major step to curb counterfeited drugs.

The serialization of drugs involves a systematic identification and tracking of drugs throughout their lifecycle. The serialization of drugs also addresses supply chain security problems such as disruption of the counterfeiters' business process, their price structures, authentication of products, and grey market challenges.

The keystone for the implementation of effective serialization is not just attaching unique serial numbers to the products but also maintaining the identifications for traceability and visibility of the supply chain.

3. Customer Specific Store Experience - Generate Revenue

Customer-specific engagement is going to become an integral part of the pharmacy software vendors and the entire industry should work towards customer shopping behavior. The pharmacy can generate great revenue by tapping into an unidentified and know internal information, to offer holistic health and overall wellness facilities, solutions, and products.

Self-care and healthcare consumerism is growing rapidly. Consumers have become very health conscious and also to reduce any personal expenditure and avoid serious health problems, they opt for self-prescription and over the counter medication.

This self-medication market opens up a huge self-medication opportunity for pharmacies and also instills a sense of care and responsibility towards the patients. While prescription of a genuine and apt Over-the-counter is necessary, it also important to the pharmacists to advise them to consult a health care professional in case of a bigger problem.

4. Medicine Identification

The applications to identify medicines are being developed. This will do away with the compulsory need for a pharmacist technician during emergencies.

When a patient comes with a tablet strip and does not know the name of the medicine, the nurse can scan the pill and obtain the name of the medicine without the help of a pharmacy technician.