Paw Paw Village Pharmacy is a family-owned pharmacy that has served the residents of Paw Paw, Michigan for over 35 years. They pride themselves on providing fast and friendly service and are dedicated to helping patients find the best and most cost-effective solutions for their needs. Paw Paw Village Pharmacy fills an average of 450 scripts per day, and over 700 prescriptions on a busy Monday.
Paw Paw Village Pharmacy had a lot of technicians walking back and forth pulling bottles and counting drugs as fast as they could in order to keep up with demand. This negatively impacted their error rate and service delivery.
In addition, Paw Paw Village Pharmacy was considering purchasing another pharmacy, which would cause their inventory volume to increase by over 20% overnight. They would need a way to manage and track this new inventory.
Paw Paw Village Pharmacy purchased the RxSafe 1800 two-tower system in order to increase accuracy and efficiency, and improve patient safety. Eighty percent (80%) of the pharmacy’s prescriptions are now filled through the RxSafe. The system pulls medications by bar codes so the NDC codes are correct and there is far less room for errors.
Paw Paw Village Pharmacy acquired another pharmacy and its inventory year after purchasing the RxSafe system. The RxSafe allowed them to assimilate all of their new inventory-into their pharmacy over the course of a weekend. RxSafe’s bottle picking algorithm automatically selected soonest-to-expire medications first, which enabled them to dispense newly-acquired inventory that might otherwise have been discarded. Over a period of six weeks they were able to deplete $98,000 of excess inventory.
“I’m happy with the RxSafe because it’s improved our inventory turns, reduced my labor hours, and it’s given us the opportunity to take care of our customers in new ways (such as MTM, blister packaging, and delivery service).”
“Filling prescriptions using the RxSafe completely changed our workflow. We used to have multiple technicians pulling drugs, filling prescriptions and lining them up on different counters for the pharmacist to check. Now that 80% of our volume is filled at the RxSafe with only one tech, we have a much more organized process of setting up the prescriptions on one counter for the pharmacist.”
“The RapidPakRx offers another way to improve our patient’s lives and wellbeing, so independent pharmacy owners need to look at it seriously as an investment for the future for yourself and your community.”
Joe Romph Owner/Pharmacist
Paw Paw Village Pharmacy is a family-owned, professional pharmacy serving the residents of Paw Paw, Michigan and the surrounding communities since 1982. The Paw Paw Village Pharmacy staff consists of 2 full-time and 2 part-time pharmacists, as well as 11 technicians. At Paw Paw Village Pharmacy, we pride ourselves on bringing you individualized service and attention and are dedicated to helping you and your physician find the best and most cost-effective medication for you.
Security. Secure storage and tracking of drugs prevents theft and diversion. Joe Romph, co-owner told us, “With the reporting features we’re able to track the movement of each prescription bottle to show what prescription it filled and what technician filled it. The tracking and accuracy are unparalleled.”
Accuracy & efficiency. Eliminate filling errors and increase workflow efficiency. According to Romph, “We don’t have pulling mistakes anymore. Technicians used to pull and count the incorrect medication and if there was a mistake we wouldn’t catch it until the pharmacist checked it. We wasted time and effort by having someone count something that was incorrect. Then they would put the drug back in the bottle, retrieve the correct drug, and recount it. With the RxSafe, we don’t have any mistakes because it pulls by the barcode.”
Inventory management. Increase inventory turns and reduce physical inventory. Romph says “We’ve seen our inventory turns go from 19 turns to 25 turns per year. When we acquired a new pharmacy recently and added their inventory to our pharmacy it was easy with the direct-to-overstock feature—it’s a great program and it saved us!”
Reduction in labor hours. Reduction in the time required for technician counting, pharmacist verification, and inefficiencies related to inventory management. Romph shared, “Three months after introducing the RxSafe we saw a reduction in technician labor hours of between 200–250 hours per month. This reduction basically covers the cost of the RxSafe.”
Workflow improvement. Reduce the time spent on searching, retrieving, and tracking medications with the overstock feature. Romph said, “The RxSafe system handles 100% of our scripts and 80% of our inventory is in the RxSafe itself.”
Profitability. Increase inventory turns, reduce labor hours and increase profitability. According to Romph, “Along with a quieter, smoother and more efficient operation, we’ve also able to increase our inventory turns and our profit with the RxSafe.”
