Ask any pharmacy and they’ll tell you that one of the biggest frustrations they face is paper. It’s costly. It piles up. It has to be faxed, scanned, filed, signed, reviewed and shredded. It takes up so much time. And it just keeps coming. 
The Medicine Shoppe, in Sherman, Texas, had a black box where they kept faxes that staff noted as needing to be kept close due to questions, needing follow up or awaiting receipt confirmation. More than just a reminder of the rework they had to do, it was a frustrating pile in the middle of their work.
Paper Is a Problem
“Everything in that box represented a problem. And, it was a big, visible box. It was just draining to look at and a constant reminder of something that didn’t work well,” says Jana Bennett, RPh, owner. “The day we started using Updox, that box was empty and we’ve never needed it since. You can’t put a price on getting rid of that frustration.”
“Paper was just bringing us down. It costs so much, takes up space and just takes time to sort through it. We’ve made a conscious effort to reduce paper in the pharmacy and Updox online faxing played a huge part in that,” says Jana.
The Medicine Shoppe is busy, filling more than 350 prescriptions a day with two pharmacists, six technicians and 2 clerks. The pharmacy is located about an hour north of Dallas.
Jana discovered Updox through her Rx30 pharmacy management system. “The first time I saw a demo of Updox, I couldn’t really wrap my head around how we’d be able to manage that much change in our pharmacy. Finally, I just got so sick of all the paper, I called and scheduled another demonstration and it just clicked. Not only would it work for us but it offered so much more,” she says.
Once the switch was made, change came quick to The Medicine Shoppe.
“I pulled the fax machine out immediately. I called the phone company and ported the number over. We held a staff meeting one hour before opening and we were all trained on Updox in that hour,” says Jana. “I had staff log-in from different workstations and practice uploading and faxing documents. Staff loved it and kept saying ‘This is so cool!’ as we learned together. We emptied our black box and never looked back.”
Tech Created For Pharmacy
By staff training together, they were able to share their own best practices and make Updox fit into their own work processes – it became part of their team, not something they had to adapt to to use. “The training went better than anything we’ve already done. The best thing about Updox is that it’s so intuitive. That’s unusual for pharmacy software. Most technology appears to be created by someone who has never worked in a pharmacy and Updox was different,” says Jana.
“With Updox, everything we need is in one place and it gives us so much insight into how we work. Anyone can see a fax or document from their computer. We all have access into status and we’re able to be more proactive with our provider communications,” says Jana.
