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It’s every business’s goal to make its processes more efficient and productive, but this goal can cause some unintended consequences. A productive workforce isn’t necessarily producing high-quality goods. If you aren’t careful, you’ll stretch your employees too thin, causing burnout.
The same problem can be found in the healthcare industry when it comes to safely, securely, and quickly delivering medications. To ensure safety, you can’t rush. At the same time, you still need to get medicine to your customers as fast as possible, or they could suffer as a result.
With that said, healthcare companies can have their cake and eat it, too, if they follow proper protocol and a few best practices. With our advice, you can deliver medication on time.
How to Get Medication to Your Customers Quickly and Safely
Getting medication to patients safely, securely, and quickly is crucial to the success of any healthcare organization or practice. Here are some critical best practices to keep in mind.
1. Proper Storage and Handling
It’s essential to ensure that you’re storing medications properly in order to maintain their effectiveness. Before medicines are shipped out, make sure they’re stored in a cool, dry, and dark place. Check all expiration dates and discard medications that are no longer safe to use.
If you’re managing staff, you need to stress the importance of proper storage and handling. Customers should also be advised on where to store their own medication once they get it.
For example, many patients assume you can store medicine in the bathroom cabinet, but most medication is damaged by heat and moisture. The more a patient knows about their medicine, the more likely they are to take it safely and return to your pharmacy or company for a refill.
2. Secure Delivery Methods
A Georgetown University study found that 66% of adults use prescription drugs to aid in their health. With the rise of online prescription tools, accessing necessary medications has become more convenient and efficient for many patients. It’s pretty hard to imagine what would happen if patients didn’t receive their medication due to delivery difficulties, such as improper packaging, a high-temperature vehicle, or theft.
To prevent this catastrophe, health organizations must follow safety protocols, secure all medication, and hire trusted medical couriers like Dropoff. Dropoff has reliable same-day delivery and experienced staff that can maintain HIPAA guidelines on all their shipments.
3. Accurate Documentation
Accurate documentation is essential if you want to deliver the right medications to the right patient at the right time. Organizations should label all medications clearly with the patient’s name, dosage, and administration instructions to reduce confusion or improper medication use.
Staff should be trained on proper documentation procedures to ensure compliance, but they shouldn’t be left to document important information manually. That’s where software comes in.
Pharmacy delivery and tracking software can help you track, distribute, and confirm delivery runs, while pharmacy databases can catalog medication information. The patient can use healthcare apps to refill prescriptions, or e-prescriptions, and check when they can pick up or ship their medication.
4. Communication and Coordination
Empathy is an integral part of any customer-facing industry, but it’s essential in healthcare. You may find that a patient has stopped taking their medication abruptly, but it isn’t always because they forgot. Nearly 29% of Americans report not taking their medications due to cost difficulties.
This is just one of the reasons why communication and coordination between healthcare providers, patients, and pharmacies are crucial for safe, secure, and timely medication delivery.
But to ensure all staff are on the same page, you must train them to communicate effectively with patients and other healthcare providers. You should focus on building a community that feels safe discussing their problems, be they health or finance related, so you can adjust.
5. Monitoring and Follow-up
Healthcare providers should monitor and follow up with patients to check if medication is being used correctly and that any issues are addressed quickly. Instead of asking if the patient has any side effects, go through the list of side effects and ask if the patient is experiencing them.
A patient won’t know they’re having an adverse reaction to the medication until you discuss the risks, and staff won’t know how to address these issues unless they’re trained. Medication errors and side effects happen, and your team must be equipped to deal with these problems.
