POS Poised for Growth
The following article appeared in the January/February 2004 publication of Computer Talk for the Pharmacist. We have excerpted the section pertaining to Emporos Systems and Point of Sale technology.
WHERE WE ARE HEADED
WITH TECHNOLOGY
What industry executives have to say.
Point-of-sale systems are coming off a good year, and the players in this sector voice optimism that 2004 will see further acceptance of these systems. "We find pharmacists wanting to use technology to manage the total business, not just the pharmacy," says Steve Wubker , "and this accounts for the interest we are finding in POS." What's happening is that POS systems are augmenting workflow systems when the two systems can talk to each other. The POS system then becomes more than just a checkout station. It can tell the clerk if a prescription is missing or the fill is for a partial quantity. Greg Phillips, president of Emporos Systems, the provider of the POS system that connects with Transaction Data'sRx30 system, explains that there is a difference between an interface and full integration. "When you have a POS system that is truly integrated, you have real-time communications between two systems , " he says. This means that when a prescription is picked up and paid for, it's taken off the will-call list in the pharmacy system. Or when anew customer is entered into the pharmacy system, the POS system has the information right away. "With an interface, prescription barcodes scanned at the register are updated in the pharmacy system at night," says Phillips.
POS systems are being put to work in other ways as well. Their e-signature modules can capture the signatures necessary for the prescription itself, as well as for credit and debit card transactions. According to Brad Jones, president of Retail Management Solutions, a delivery module added to its POS system at the end of last year is coming out with new enhancements this year.
Bill McKenna, who is a senior member of the CAM Commerce sales force, says the opportunity cost is too high to ignore POS, especially when systems are gaining even more functionality and pharmacy system companies are willing to build connectivity between the two systems. "We now have interfaces with all the major pharmacy systems," he says. It's always been a harder sale without an interface, so a major barrier has been removed.
Another technology that creates value, according to Greg Phillips, is touch-screens. "These help to reduce training time and are easier to custom configure for the pharmacy," says Phillips. Doug Kauppila , director of pharmacy POS for ECR Software, concurs: "Programmable keyboards are expensive, and with touch screens you avoid this expense, don't lose any functionality, and speed up checkout."
But it's more than connectivity within the pharmacy that can make a difference. Just as small chains want a centralized database for prescriptions, Brad Jones has found the same interest when it comes to POS. "A head-office system gives better control over inventory and managing transfers between stores," Jones says. That's just one way an enterprise system can be put to work for independents with several stores under common ownership. Jones also feels that such a system has appeal for buying groups. The head-office system is a new product from Retail Management Solutions coming to market this year.
Something else new in '04 for the pharmacy market will be self-checkout stations. "There are four companies that make self-checkout stations, and ECRS acquired one of the four," says Kauppila . The plan is to introduce the product this year and, according to Kauppila , pharmacies will be able to install these stations even if they do not have the ECRS Catapult system. He sees self-checkout as the next big wave. "These systems will be competitively priced, and if a pharmacy now has three or four check-out lanes, one or two of them should be self-checkout," notes Kauppila .
Bill Cobb at QS/1 sees POS continuing to be a high-demand item. Other companies, like Best Computer Systems, are adding POS to its product line in response to market interest. All signs point to a solid year for POS systems.
