Mobile Check-In System for Pharmacy Prescription Workflow Prioritization
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing pharmacy systems fail to efficiently manage prescription fill orders, leading to unfilled prescriptions at retail stores, and lack effective mobile check-in solutions, resulting in customer inconvenience and increased computing resources required for drug information retrieval.
Innovation Solution
A system that uses mobile computing devices to determine customer location, confirm pending prescription orders, prioritize them for pharmacists, and notify customers when orders are ready for pickup, while also monitoring potential drug interactions and providing relevant information via mobile applications.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If customers manually notify pharmacy staff of their arrival, then staff can prepare for pickup, but customer convenience is reduced and service efficiency decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The system enables customers to perform check-in autonomously using mobile devices without requiring staff intervention. The mobile application allows customers to notify the pharmacy of their arrival independently, eliminating the need for manual notification while maintaining service efficiency through automated workflow triggering.
Solution Approach 2:
The mechanical process of manual notification is replaced with an electronic mobile application-based system. The mobile app communicates with the pharmacy management system through electronic signals, substituting the physical act of customer-staff interaction with an automated digital communication channel that triggers workflow automation.
2Loss of information
If comprehensive drug databases are maintained, then complete drug information is available, but computing resources and search time increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts and displays only the specific drug information relevant to the customer's current prescription and potential interactions, rather than presenting the entire drug database. This selective information extraction reduces computing resource requirements while maintaining completeness of relevant drug information.
Solution Approach 2:
The drug information display is customized to show different levels of detail based on local context - specifically, information related to the customer's prescribed medications and potential interactions. The system prioritizes displaying locally relevant drug data over comprehensive but unrelated information, optimizing resource usage.
3Productivity
If prescription orders are prioritized in pharmacist workflow, then prescription fill speed increases, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by automatically prioritizing prescription orders in the pharmacist's workflow before the customer actually arrives at the pharmacy. The mobile check-in triggers advance notification and automatic workflow prioritization, allowing pharmacists to prepare in advance rather than reacting to customer arrivals, thus increasing fill speed without adding complex real-time management systems.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods including one or more processors and one or more non-transitory storage devices storing computing instructions configured to run on the one or more processors and perform acts of storing, in a pharmacy database of a computer system, pharmacy account information, wherein the pharmacy account information comprises: a unique patient ID associated with a customer; a pharmaceutical drug record indicating a pharmaceutical drug prescribed to the customer; and an action record indicating triggering actions of the pharmaceutical drug; determining, by the computer system, that the customer is entering or has entered a retail store; after determining that the customer is entering or has entered a retail store: confirming, by the computer system, that the customer has at least one prescription fill order pending with a pharmacy of the retail store; prioritizing, by the computer system, the at least one prescription fill order to a top of a workflow of a pharmacist in the pharmacy of the retail store; and transmitting a communication to a mobile computing device of the customer that the customer will be notified when the at least one prescription fill order is ready to be picked up at the pharmacy of the retail store; detecting, by the computer system, a triggering action of the triggering actions of the pharmaceutical drug; and in response to detecting the triggering action, facilitating a display, on the mobile computing device of the customer, of a notification about the triggering action. Other embodiments are disclosed herein.