Interactive Prescription Routing With Buffered Pharmacy Selection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Patients have limited visibility into the routing of electronic prescriptions, often making uninformed decisions about pharmacy choices due to lack of time and information on options such as inventory, cost, and location, leading to frequent changes in pharmacy selection.
Innovation Solution
An interactive routing server system buffers electronic prescriptions, providing patients with a list of pharmacies that can fulfill the prescription, allowing them to select a pharmacy based on payment amounts, geographic location, and other parameters, and routes the prescription to the chosen pharmacy.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If patients are provided with complete information about pharmacy options, inventory, cost, and location, then patient choice and cost awareness are enhanced, but system complexity and information processing requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The interactive routing server system acts as an intermediary between the prescription source and pharmacy fulfillment options. It collects prescription data, queries multiple pharmacies for availability and pricing, gathers location information, and presents synthesized options to patients through a user interface. This intermediary role consolidates complex information gathering and processing tasks, enabling patients to access comprehensive pharmacy options without directly managing the underlying system complexity.
2Loss of time
If patients are given time to review pharmacy options, then informed decisions are enabled, but prescription fulfillment time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by proactively gathering pharmacy availability, pricing, and location information before presenting options to patients. When a prescription is received, the interactive routing server immediately queries participating pharmacies for inventory status and pricing, retrieves location data, and prepares the complete set of fulfillment options in advance. This preliminary information gathering occurs in the background, allowing patients to review comprehensive options without delaying the overall prescription fulfillment process.
3Adaptability or versatility
If multiple pharmacies are queried for prescription fulfillment, then patient options and choice are increased, but system processing time and computational resources increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies partial action by querying pharmacies in a prioritized sequence rather than simultaneously querying all pharmacies. The interactive routing server first queries pharmacies based on proximity to the patient, then checks availability and pricing at those locations. If sufficient options are found, the system stops querying additional pharmacies. This approach provides patients with adequate choice and comparison information while avoiding the excessive processing time that would result from querying every participating pharmacy.
Data Source
AI summary
An electronic prescription is obtained over a network. A synthetic prescription is generated from the electronic prescription and provided to an insurance switching system. Insurance information of a patient is received from the insurance switching system based on the synthetic prescription. An auto-reversal of the synthetic prescription with the insurance switching system is triggered. A patient payment amount associated with the particular pharmaceutical is determined based on the insurance information. One or more pharmacies to fulfill the electronic prescription are identified based on patient information. An interactive routing request data message is provided to the patient, the data message including the patient payment amount and a request for selection of a particular pharmacy of the one or more pharmacies. The selection of the particular pharmacy is received from a computing device associated with the patient. In response to receiving the selection, the electronic prescription is routed to the particular pharmacy.