A pharmacy in east Yorkshire has reduced by 75% the time spent on managing controlled drugs prescriptions by using a new electronic monitoring system, integrated into the ‘ProScript Connect’ dispensary management system, developed by EMIS Health.
Neil Mowbray, manager at the Day Lewis pharmacy in Hull, now spends just 20 minutes a week instead of over an hour on auditing his controlled drugs prescriptions. Four months ago, he ditched paper files to pilot an electronic controlled drugs register (eECDR) that is integrated into his ProScript Connect system.
“I’m a big fan of the eECDR,” said Mr Mowbray. “It has reduced discrepancies and errors, because we record information in real time. It has also reduced the volume of drugs going out of date, as it is easier to monitor stock. The controlled drugs register (CDR) was a Monday job that often got pushed back to another day because of the time it took. Now we can complete it in about a quarter of the time.”
Mr Mowbray, who is a regional pharmacy manager with Day Lewis, said that before the integrated e-module, every delivery of controlled drugs had to be written into a paper register by hand. “It was a hassle. The information was held in two big thick folders and we had to flick through pages and pages of information to audit. Now we have more time to spend with patients on other services. We run very busy travel clinics, as well as doing NHS health checks, smoking cessation and medicines use reviews.
Shanel Raichura, clinical director of medicines management at EMIS Health, said: “The eCDR is a perfect example of how IT can transform modern pharmacy. Not only is it freeing up time for pharmacists to spend on enhanced patient services, it is eliminating errors and helping to drive up standards.”
EMIS Health is rolling out eCDR to its customer base in the first half of 2019, with a number of users already setup and using the integrated electronic module.
The eCDR module is free for users of the ProScript Connect dispensary management system. Users can order the service with EMIS Health Community Pharmacy and book their training session for the module at the same time.
ProScript Connect is the latest version of EMIS Health’s widely used pharmacy software. All of Day Lewis’ 311 pharmacies in the UK now use the software, following a nationwide switch.
