How to Expand Your Hospital’s Discharge Program & Prescription Capture: Video

Pharmacies across the globe use ScriptCenter automated pharmacy technology to expand their discharge program and increase employee prescription capture without additional staff.

Across Healthcare, maximized efficiency and cost-savings always seem to be top of mind. One methodology is the pharmacy. Hospitals use in-house outpatient pharmacies to capture employee prescriptions to help lower drug costs and avoid PBM penalties. For employees that work during pharmacy operating hours, this is a great benefit. However, this option fails to capture overnight employees. Other hospitals look to focus on discharge programs to help lower insurance penalties and other costs associated with readmission. Unfortunately, these programs typically require heavy staffing. Both situations leave employees and patients at increased risk of walking out the door without their prescriptions in hand.

Self-insured hospitals invest heavily in their outpatient pharmacies to dispense employee prescriptions. However, 2nd and 3rd shift employees are typically unable to access the pharmacy during operating hours. So what does this population of employees do? They go elsewhere and fill prescriptions with a competitor. Without a solution that expands pharmacy access, after-hours employers are stuck. It’s not sensible to think that hospitals can expand outpatient pharmacy hours overnight. 

ScriptCenter automated pharmacy solutions can help. With an automated pharmacy kiosk or locker system, the pharmacy can place finished prescriptions into the system for employees to access after the pharmacy has closed. Capture those employees and their dependents without expanding hours or staff.

Medication adherence following hospital discharge is top of mind for many healthcare providers. One study found hospital readmissions cost Medicare upwards of $26 billion annually. With readmission reducition on the top of healthcare’s mind, hospitals place significant importance on Meds2Beds or other discharge programs for medication adherence. However, these programs are often understaffed and disorganized. In addition, patients don’t want to wait in the pharmacy congestion and leave the hospital without their prescriptions.

Instead, use a centralized prescription pickup point away from the pharmacy with a ScriptCenter solution. For example, place a ScriptCenter kiosk in a lobby near the hospital exit or a ScriptCenter locker system in a corridor or hallway away from heavy foot traffic. Directing patients or staff to access filled discharge prescriptions through ScriptCenter, so they never have to come to the pharmacy. A centralized pickup location allows hospitals to alleviate pharmacy congestion and help ensure patients are walking out of their facility with their prescriptions in hand.

Recently, Vanderbilt Health featured their ScriptCenter automated pharmacy locker solution in a Meds-to-Beds study conducted. Their focus was to expand their current M2B program and increase medication adherence without hiring additional staff. Through a centralized pickup program via ScriptCenter, their overall discharge prescription pickup rate rose to 72%. Similarly, they saw a positive trend, with prescription fill volume jumping from 2.0% to 94.0% over the first year.

Solve these common problems without expanding pharmacy hours or hiring additional staff. ScriptCenter technology can take care of remedial tasks like payment and prescription delivery to frees up pharmacy staff to work on clinical tasks or discharge programs. Use ScriptCenter to help increase employee and patient satisfaction, extend pharmacy access and prescription pickup hours, and reduced PBM costs.

Want more? Learn how ScriptCenter solutions help pharmacists deliver effective counseling to patients away from the pharmacy counter.