Benefits of prescription collection machines

As a pharmacist, you know that you spend hours on prescription collections. You might even find that you’re losing customers due to online pharmacies that offer more flexibility.

Investing in pharmacy automation and a prescription collection machine can save you time and improve patient care.

Find out how a prescription vending machine works and if it’s right for your business.

 

What is pharmacy vending machine?

A pharmacy vending machine or a prescription dispensing machine allows patients to collect their prescription at any time, 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.

 

How do prescription vending machines work?

Different prescription collections may work differently, but at Edia, we provide MedPoint machine,s which use an auto scan system.

 

1. Pharmacy staff place the prescription bags on any of the shelves. The prescription bag has a QR code on the label and the bag is auto scanned and links the prescription with the shelf number.

 

2. The patient gets an automated text with a unique collection PIN.

 

3. The patient can then go to the prescription collection machine when it suits them best and enter their PIN to collect their prescription. The patient can either enter the PIN on a keypad or they can scan their QR code.

 

 

 

What are the benefits of drug vending machines?

Prescription collection machines have lots of benefits for both pharmacies and their patients. These include:

 

Saves 40 seconds per prescription

Pharmacy automation can help to reduce prescription filling time by 40 seconds per prescription and save 24.8 hours a year in inventory management.

The automated medication dispensing system also saves time by scanning the QR codes, so when staff place the prescriptions into the machine, there’s no need for manual scanning.

It also means staff can adjust their working hours to give them more flexibility, and for some pharmacies, it can lead to reducing their opening hours because of the time it saves. This means fewer overhead costs.

It can also mean that pharmacists can better allocate dispensing tasks to Accuracy Checking Technicians (ACTs,) which frees up the pharmacists’ time.

 

Improve patient safety

The barcode technology minimises the risk of human error on prescription collection, and the auto-scanning ensures the right patient gets the right medicine.

 

Medication errors are a problem, with an estimated 237 million medication errors a year in England alone. While many medication errors will cause little or no harm to your patient, there is a 2% chance it could cause severe harm.

 

The common causes of medication errors are 21% prescribing errors and 16% due to dispensing. Using pharmacy automation has been shown to reduce human error, with automated and robotic dispensing systems showing a 37% reduction in medication errors.

 

 

Better quality care

When routine tasks like repeat prescriptions are taken care of, it means pharmacists can spend more time having conversations with their patients who need it.

 

Increase customer satisfaction

With patients able to collect their prescriptions at any time, it provides a better service to them.

Pharmacists have found that patients use online pharmacies to get their prescriptions at a time that suits them, but with prescription collection machines, it means patients can do this without turning to online pharmacies.

It also reduces waiting time for patients, instead of standing in queues waiting for prescriptions, they can pick it up a lot quicker and within 24 hours of getting their prescription, or sometimes as soon as that evening.

 

Increase market share

With a medicine vending machine, you can service more patients. Using a prescription collection machine can attract new patients and you can utilise it as a click and collect facility to increase OTC sales and reduce delivery costs.

 

Are prescription collection machines secure?

With MedPoint prescription collection machines, they have all metal casing and an anti-tamper design. They all have CCTV and an alarm as standard too.

It’s also safe for payments as it has an online or contactless card payment facility.

 

 

What happens if my prescription collection machine breaks down?

MedPoint machines are manufactured in Britain and build for longevity and reliability.

But, unfortunately, sometimes technology can let us down. MedPoint provide six monthly services and proactive remote monitoring. Whenever you have an issue, simply get in touch with the team and we can help.

 

How Edia can help your pharmacy

Edia is partnered with MedPoint to offer a bigger range of pharmacy automation machines.

We offer MedPoint prescription collection machines, which comes in three sizes to suit any premises, including the SOLO 2 range which is free-standing.

 

The MedPoint pharmacy vending machines can help your pharmacy by:

Helping you reduce supplementary hours without impacting item numbers

Reduce delivery service costs by converting some delivery patients

Consolidate loss-making branches with a remote collection point for higher customer retention.

 

If you’ve any questions about our pharmacy automation machines, please get in touch.