Remote Prescription Management
The ‘uphill battle’ with consistent prescription management
Prescription management is a major part of general practice, but it can be time-consuming. Research shows that clinical prescribing pharmacists can significantly reduce GPs’ time spent on prescribing related activities. At Clinical Rx®, we take pride in ensuring that patient safety and efficient workflow continuity is at the forefront of our service provision. Our virtual pharmacy team works collaboratively with practices to reduce overall workflow, ensuring that high-risk drugs are monitored, repeat templates are synchronised and prescription management is optimised.
A notable proportion of general practice work lies within prescription management, which is a primary focus to safer prescribing and checking for patient-medication adherence. Research published in 2018 in the British Journal of General Practice outlined the study of how the provision of clinical prescribing pharmacists in general practice can significantly reduce general practitioners’ time spent in prescribing activities by 51%. That can equate to around 5-6hours of their working day, up to 30 working hours a week, 120 hours a month and a whopping approximate of 1440 hours a year!
It is also more cost effective to place funding for clinical pharmacists who are experts in this field to manage prescriptions thus giving GPs this amount of time back, freeing up to around 12 potential clinical face to face appointments per day with patients. This allows GPs to shift their focus on those patients who require attention for more chronic and complex conditions.
5 Ways Clinical Rx® Can Make Your Practice More Efficient and Patient-Focused
At Clinical Rx® we take pride in ensuring that patient safety and efficient workflow continuity is at the forefront of our service provision. Prescription management consists of a wide range of activities, which at Clinical Rx®, our service entails pharmacists reducing overall workflow by working collaboratively with the practices and their needs. Such specifics within the service include ensuring high risk drugs including control drugs schedule II and general medication monitoring are in place and up to date. Arranging to monitor and communicate this directly to the patient where there is a gap in monitoring, synchronising patients’ repeat template to their review date and ensuring quantities of tablets match to a number of days to supply, managing prescriptions for medicine-compliance aids such as Dossett boxes and having close communications with patients’ local pharmacies, setting up electronic repeat dispensing, arranging reviews on acute medicine and ensuring long term conditions are being reviewed with appropriate coding for auditing purposes and meeting QOF requirements.
We deliver our services on the grounds of conscious balance of using clinical judgement, evidence-based cost-effective prescribing and national/local guidelines. We always ensure that patients are not without their medication where it is clinically safe to do so.
The outcome of our service includes:
- Fewer sporadic medication requests
- Less unsynchronised medication lists
- More efficient processing of requests
- Fewer prescribing errors
- Consistent drug monitoring management
All of these can lead to a better organised and patient-focused practice.
Working in Synergy with other Primary Care Providers
Clinical Rx® works closely with community pharmacies to stay up to date on supply and stock issues bridging the gap between community pharmacists and general practice clinicians. Our qualified prescribing pharmacies can prescribe alternative medications and treatment options on-the-day where there is a supply shortage or stock concern. This allows us to quickly identify and resolve any problems whilst reducing the pressure on community pharmacies.
By working in synergy with other primary care providers, Clinical Rx® can help to ensure that patients have access to the medications they need, when they need them.
Prescription Management: A Win-Win for Patients and Practices
Ensuring prescriptions are efficiently set up and managed not only benefits the practice but can make a profound effect on patients’ lives too.
“I am a carer for my mother but I also take a lot of regular medications for my long term chronic health conditions, it can be quite difficult to be able to remember to order my prescriptions on top of managing my mum’s, since my GP have helped organise my and mum’s medications to go via electronic prescribing to our local pharmacy, has literally changed my life, its all electronic now which is even better! I don’t have to make myself more unwell worrying about my and mum’s medications and I know exactly when I need to make an appointment with my GP for our reviews.” –Patient feedback on electronic repeat dispensing set up by Clinical Rx®
Prescription management not only can save valuable clinical time but also allows patients to take better ownership and accountability of their own medications and encourage them work in synergy with their GP to ensure they are being reviewed and managed appropriately. We at Clinical Rx® have received the feedback from patients’ expressing this and this further drives the high-quality standard of our service. Prescription management also allows us to action any patient requests for medication before they are about to go away on holiday. We can check if all their monitoring requirements are up to date and they have had their annual medication review in the last 12 months along with any other medication managements such blood tests, general health checks and long-term condition reviews, all of which would have been pending for the doctor to complete, on top of their other daily duties.
Clinical Rx® : Delivering Efficient, Patient-Focused Prescription Management Services
At Clinical Rx®, we are proud of our core values and our commitment to providing high-quality, patient-centred prescription management services. Our team of highly trained and experienced professionals are committed to using our clinical judgement and expertise to ensure that patients receive the best possible care. We also believe in integrated non-medical therapeutic advice to our patients. Our team are equipped and trained to integrate non-medicinal therapeutic support through advice around diet, lifestyle, and wellbeing, which can help patients to improve their overall health and well-being.
Our service is delivered on the grounds of the conscious balance of using clinical judgement and guidelines, we will always ensure that patients are not without their medication where it is clinically safe to do so. The outcome of our service includes fewer sporadic requests, less unsynchronised medications, more efficient processing of requests, fewer prescribing errors due to lack of monitoring and pressure of increased workload, greater consistent drug monitoring management and fewer delays in prescriptions reaching the patient, therefore better patient compliance to their therapeutics and treatments. All of these can lead to a better organised and patient focused practice.
Clinical Rx® : The Prescription Management Solution That's Head and Shoulders Above the Rest
At Clinical Rx®, we put patient safety, doctor time, and patient satisfaction at the heart of everything we do. We differ from other clinical service providers as client and patient satisfaction is at the heart of our practice and service provision. We are patient-centric when it comes to prescription management, and we are mindful of the burden of prescription charges, the hassle of multiple trips to the pharmacy, and the impact of misaligned repeats.
Our skilled and supervised pharmacists ensure that repeat prescription requests are set up correctly to target all these potential issues. We do not cut corners or do things in halves. Our pharmacists have been trained to critically think and go the extra mile to ensure continuity in prescription management in practices for years to come.
Therefore, our skilled and supervised pharmacists ensure that repeat prescriptions are set up correctly to target all these potential issues that patients and therefore GPs in turn may face. We do not cut corners or do things by halves. Our pharmacists have been trained to critically think sometimes outside the box and go the extra mile to ensure this continuity in prescription management in practices are in place, years down the line.
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