100,000+ Hours Saved in 2023, and More Pharmacy Will-Call Results to Celebrate

We got together with three pharmacy leaders this fall to discuss their experiences selecting and implementing will-call automation technology. Patient safety, time savings (at the point of sale and with return to stock), and staff morale were the most important factors. Here’s some of what they had to say:

What prompted you to consider a will-call solution?

• “We felt like prescriptions were getting lost,” Courtney Polin of Grove Park Pharmacy “We couldn’t find them very easily and our customers were getting frustrated, we were getting frustrated, and so the idea of being able to locate a prescription with the press of a button was fantastic! … Now, we can find [prescription orders] anywhere in the store and it’s really saved a lot of wait time for our customers. That was our biggest selling point.”
  
  

• “The most important thing is making sure the right people get the right prescriptions,” said Teri Anders, owner of Rock Creek Pharmacy.

   

Why scripClip, as opposed to other will-call solutions out there?

• “I liked [scripClip] because it could grow with us,” Stephanie Stevens of St. Mary’s Medical Center “It seemed more user friendly and more adaptable; if I wanted to change the store around, I didn’t have to worry about moving around other fixtures besides the bags.”
  
  

What return on investment have you seen?

• “It saves a lot of time and effort for my employees,” Stevens said. “It’s a much more pleasant experience for both patient and staff member.” Making sure patients don’t leave the pharmacy without all of their prescriptions is a tremendous benefit.
  
  
• “Return to stock wasn’t being done prior to us getting the system and it just makes it more simplified, more streamlined,” she also explained. Now they do it daily – running a quick report to retrieve all aged prescriptions that aren’t picked up and putting them back to stock as time allows throughout the day. Anders and Polin do the same.
  
  
• And Anders said simply, “Sometimes it just does you a lot of good to make your staff happy!”

   

  “What’s your favorite thing about scripClip?” she asked her cashier on the fly: “Oh gosh, everything. I love having it to look up the people; I just light up [the scripClips]; I go get [the prescriptions]. Best thing ever!”

   

What advice do you have for other pharmacy leaders starting to consider will-call automation?

• “One of the most important things I did when I was trying to choose [what will-call system to use] was include my pharmacy staff. I got their opinions. I wanted their feedback. I wanted their buy-in so when we started using it, they didn’t feel like it’s something I forced on them, but it was something they had picked out … to help them in the pharmacy,” Stevens explained – adding that the ease of installation and onboarding reiterated that they made the right choice. “It was such a simple training to do.”
  
  
• Polin echoed the sentiment, explaining that change can be difficult for tenured employees, “but once they saw how seamlessly you could light up a bag and find a prescription, they bought into it really quickly. … It has been a game changer with our staff morale – being able to find bags and provide customer service,” she said. “It’s 100% worth it.”