Adherence Case Study: McBain Family Pharmacy

McBain Family Pharmacy is an independent pharmacy owned by Clayton Gilde, RPh. In business since 2013, the pharmacy has two locations in the rural farming community of McBain, Michigan. Patients must often drive long distances to get to the pharmacy or have their prescriptions delivered to them.

The pharmacy’s typical patient is an older adult who might need extra help taking multiple medications. According to Gilde, one of the reasons that patients choose McBain Family Pharmacy is because they can get all their prescriptions filled at one time and packaged in easy to use adherence pouches.

McBain attributes its success to the staff’s close community ties as well as their ability to meet patient needs by providing services that competitors don’t offer, such as adherence packaging and delivery services.

McBain Family Pharmacy was originally offering patients blister card packaging, but the manual filling and checking process was cumbersome. While filling the cavities one by one, the pills would frequently bounce into the wrong location. In addition, the process required lots of rework, often taking up to one hour of labor to complete a job for just one patient.

Gilde noticed that many patients were starting to ask about compliance packaging and he started researching pharmacy automation systems. Once he found the RapidPakRx™, he knew this was his automation solution.

Gilde chose the RapidPakRx in part because of the system’s speed, accuracy, and efficiency. The pharmacy could process several times more patients per day using automation than they could manually. “The speed and accuracy factors were probably our biggest decision-makers when we chose the RapidPakRx over the competition. With manual blister card packaging, one patient might take an hour. Now with the RapidPakRx, we’re able to complete a patient in less than 15 minutes, from start to finish,” says Gilde.

Having a system with built-in vision inspection throughout the automated packaging process also streamlined their workflow significantly and enhanced efficiency. Gilde says, “With manual blister card packaging we had to rework about 50 percent of our patients, and it took us about an hour. With the RapidPakRx, we’ve now been able to cut that to less than 1 percent, and it takes about 10 minutes to rework these new patients.”

Key impacts that McBain Family Pharmacy has experienced are improved efficiency and workflow, higher levels of patient satisfaction and increased profitability.

McBain Family Pharmacy is located in McBain, Michigan, and has been serving local communities since 2013. The friendly pharmacy staff forms strong relationships with their patients and prides themselves on treating patients like family.

McBain believes that when a patient chooses a local pharmacy, their service and experience should be personalized to fit their needs.

Labor Savings.

Our pharmacy has been able to save over a thousand dollars a week in labor, using the RapidPakRx.