Bringing Order to Chaos: How a POS-Integrated Lighted Will Call System Transforms Pharmacy Operations
By Brett Dupree, Product Manager, Emporos
Nearly every pharmacist will tell you that the will call area is the most chaotic place in the pharmacy. Prescriptions are placed and retrieved from racks, bins, and refrigerators; technicians juggle servicing patients and locating their prescriptions while also searching for abandoned meds to pull. It’s like the wild west.
That is, until the introduction of a lighted will call system (also known as a pick-to-light will call). These systems are helping pharmacy will call areas regain order by improving the process of locating prescriptions — benefiting customer experience, staff efficiency, and the pharmacy’s bottom line.
Addressing Will Call Challenges
As the heart of the pharmacy — where patients, prescriptions, and staff intersect — the will call area has always presented unique challenges for pharmacists, including:
- Messy medication organization and complicated retrieval. Ideally, prescriptions are filed alphabetically, but the reality is often messier, leaving pharmacy technicians flipping through numerous bags across numerous bins to locate a patient’s medications.
- Additionally, refrigerated medications pose another layer of complexity. Pharmacies typically create ad-hoc systems to identify these medications, such as writing “fridge” on the prescription receipt and storing the medications separately. Despite best efforts, these processes are prone to errors and inefficiencies.
- Inability to locate prescriptions leaves patients and pharmacy staff frustrated. Patients endure long lines, which is one reason mail-order pharmacies are becoming an increasingly popular alternative to the traditional brick-and-mortar corner store1.
- Pharmacy staff — who are already understaffed and overworked —are left dealing with irritated customers while trying to work as quickly as possible. Spending a minute trying to locate each patient’s prescriptions adds up, draining their time away from other tasks.
- Restocking unclaimed prescriptions is painstakingly slow. Unclaimed medications require a return-to-stock (RTS) process, involving running and printing reports, then manually searching through patient bags to locate the abandoned Rxs. This labor-intensive process consumes valuable time and resources – especially when you consider that one in eight patients have an unclaimed prescription2.
Enter a POS-Integrated Lighted Will Call System
A lighted will call system helps pharmacy staff regain control over these challenges, allowing them to locate prescriptions faster and more safely for dispense to patients or return to stock (RTS).
These solutions consist of a browser-based web application that utilizes wireless, battery-powered bags, clip-ons, and beacons. When active, they light up any bag containing a given patient’s prescriptions (and optionally emit a chirping noise), whether stored on racks, in bins, refrigerators, or other unique locations. The Emporos and scripClip Lighted Will Call system also has added functionality when bagging, alerting staff if the wrong patient’s medications are accidentally scanned into a bag belonging to a different patient.
Ultimately, a POS-integrated Lighted Will Call system is designed to address several key pain points for pharmacies, offering benefits such as:
- Expedited Patient Checkout: Prescriptions can be found in seconds, not minutes, allowing pharmacy staff to check out patients quickly and accurately. Considering pharmacies rank second among places where Americans spend the most time waiting, reducing wait times can significantly improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.3
- Efficient Will Call Management: The system allows pharmacy staff to navigate the will call area more effectively, reducing clutter and time spent searching for medications. Pharmacy staff can redirect their time toward more valuable activities like servicing patients.
- Simplified Return to Stock Process: Pharmacy staff can look up unclaimed medications by the number of days they’ve been in will call or by co-pay amount, lighting up the corresponding bags to pull and assess. No more printing out inventory reports and conducting manual searches.
- Enhanced Accuracy: By preventing mistakes in the bagging process before prescriptions are stored, pharmacy staff can reduce errors at checkout and ensure the right patients receive the correct medications. No more confusion or delay in front of the patient.
Choosing the Right System
One caveat to note: most lighted will call systems are not integrated with the point of sale (POS). This requires pharmacists to double the work by finding, locating, and checking out/restocking medications using both the pharmacy management system, POS, and a non-POS-integrated lighted will call system.
Emporos and scripClip offer the industry’s only POS-integrated lighted will call system. With this bidirectional system, a pharmacy team can light up bags containing patient prescriptions right from the POS. The lighted will call solution immediately activates, illuminating every bag meeting the requirement without requiring staff to switch between systems or repeat transactions.
Get Started with Emporos POS-Integrated Lighted Will Call
Are you ready to regain control over your pharmacy’s will call process and enhance overall efficiency? The Emporos Lighted Will Call system, in partnership with scripClip, offers a comprehensive solution that integrates seamlessly with your Emporos POS, streamlining operations and improving patient satisfaction.
Reach out with questions to [email protected] or request a demo to see firsthand how the Emporos Lighted Will Call system can transform your pharmacy.
References
1. Walgreens Is Following Mark Cuban’s Blueprint on Prescription Drugs (Business Insider)
2. Assessment of the rates and characteristics of unclaimed prescriptions – PubMed (nih.gov)
3. Consumer Survey: The State of Waiting in Line (2023) | Waitwhile