Inside Centralized Pharmacy Fulfillment: How Software Can Transform Operations

Pharmacy fulfillment has changed significantly in recent years, and more changes are coming.

Demetri Williams, the vice president of software engineering for IA, explains how technology is streamlining pharmacy fulfillment to meet the changes in the healthcare industry. In the past, Williams says the industry was focused on ensuring medications get to the bedside of patients in the hospital.

“The industry is moving more towards what happens after they leave the hospital,” he says. “And that's where the pharmacy fulfillment centers really come into place, being able to complete 30,000 prescriptions in an eight-hour shift and ensure that they get back to the retail centers that help our patients.”

The process has become automated over the last few years. Now, Williams says the next phase involves more advanced analytics.

As he says, “How do we take the data from all of our different fulfillment centers, or just the different pharmacies, and make better decisions for our patients, as well as the fulfillment centers?”

“As we look at AI, we look at the cloud, that's going to open up other avenues in regards to how do you better route demand? How do we get a patient or prescription even that much sooner? So that's the way in which the industry is really looking, and I'm looking forward to seeing it," Williams says.

In this video, Williams discusses the Nexia enterprise software suite and the capabilities it provides to IA customers. He also talks about the steps the company takes to protect data.

“The whole focus is ensuring that we're putting our due diligence behind our cloud solutions before putting it in front of our customers,” he says.