★ APPLICATIONS ★ DIVERS ★ PHARMACY LABELLING ★ |
| Pharmacy Labelling | Applications Divers |
New JR computer John Richardson Computers are launching a new pharmacy labelling system based on the 128K Amstrad CPC6128. The new system loses none of the operating characteristics of previous models, but has been priced at £999 for NPA members to bring a disc labeller into the reach of more pharmacies, they say. The labelling software is based on the established Richardson program, but also contains some new features. Spare capacity still exists for program enhancements as they become available — the first of which will be the automatic production and transmission of orders direct to the wholesaler of choice via a modem, say Richardson. A 24-hour replacement and maintenance service costs £245 per annum and includes one routine annual service visit, together with free program updates, and special prices on general hardware and software packages as available. As an introductory offer during November and December, or until stocks run out, 20,000 labels, and a £100 voucher (to set against the purchase of a Richardson modem at a later date) will be given with each order. John Richardson Computers Ltd, Freepost, Preston PR5.
Open day at John Richardson Computers John Richardson Computers have gone back to school — literally. The company's new premises — previously an infant school run by the Roman Catholic Church but closed last year because of a lack of children — were officially opened last week by the Pharmaceutical Society's president Dr Geoff Booth. The company used the occasion to show off some new developments to a select list of guests from retail (including Boots), wholesale, the Department of Health and National Pharmaceutical Association. The system closest to launch on to the market is an automatic ordering “add-on" unit for John Richardson Computers' existing labelling systems. The add-on unit, which will probably cost around £500, consists of a modem "which will communicate with anything", according to John Richardson himself, a CMos unit to provide extra memory and a software package. With such a modification, John Richardson claims, pharmacists will be able to order medicines from any wholesaler. The system is designed to automatically make up an order as items are labelled during the day. Pharmacists will be able to set their own re-order point, eg order a full pack of nitrazepam when 350 have been dispensed (labelled), so as to control their stock level as suits their particular need. The direct ordering package is currently being tested, and one wholesaler at least “is ready to go as soon as John Richardson Computers themselves are", according to Mr Richardson, who expects the system to be on sale quite shortly. A system incorporating patient records is currently being used in Eire. It can store details of 12,000 patients and 65,000 prescriptions. It codes and prices all dispensed prescriptions (particularly important in Eire where a good proportion of prescriptions are private), and can communicate orders to wholesalers with instant look-up of over 10,000 products. John Richardson say this program is to be developed for the UK very soon. John Richardson realised that all the information being captured and stored during the labelling process could itself be of commercial value. Just recently a deal was signed with British Telecom to market just such information to the pharmaceutical industry at Datascript. At the end of each month 300 pharmacies throughout England, Scotland and Wales send prescription data in disk form to John Richardson Computers where it is collated. The panel of pharmacies is stratified across the country in relation to location and dispensing size. Over one million prescriptions are analysed by Datascript each month. Some 1,500 drugs are monitored including some low volume/turnover ones to test for absolute accuracy. In two or three months it is hoped that the pharmacies will be using additional battery-backed CMos memory capable of collecting information on every item dispensed including manually typed ones, says the company. Statistical information from Datascript can be provided to the pharmaceutical industry within 14 days of month end — some two weeks before other data collection services, claims John Richardson. John Hichardson Computers have moved into new premises — a school >> Another development a little further back up the pipeline but still expected to be launched before the end of the year is Medihelp which could be broadly described as a counterprescribing aid. In its present developmental form the program (demonstrated on an Amstrad CPC6128 microcomputer with a colour monitor) covers 16 "therapeutic areas" including problems such as diarrhoea, haemorrhoids, aches and pains, constipation and baby care. The programme takes patients (or pharmacists) through a series of questions about symptoms and arrives at a product recommendation or a suggestion to visit the doctor. The company feels that perhaps it would be better to recommend a type of product rather than naming a specific brand, so that may well be modified. And at the moment it may be that the program could be sold as an aide memoir for pharmacists or as something they could go through with a patient or possibly as a device for patients themselves to use. After those products the company has further plans to move in to the front of the pharmacy shop: some form of computerised till to provide stock control/book-keeping functions is envisaged, and John Richardson has already acquired a till for "development The company has proven it can survive in the face of competition: four years ago or so, remarks Mr Richardson, there were 70 or more computer labelling companies, today there are only a handful. John Richardson Computers believe they have survived because of their concern for the pharmacist and back up and servicing facilities. For example, customers who ring with a problem before 5pm during the week can be supplied with a replacement part, if needs be, the following day. But one of the biggest problems people have with their labelling systems is unfamilarity rather than a fault in the system itself, says operations and personnel manager Neil Austin. The four-person customer services department deals with some 12,000 queries a year which represents one person in one pharmacy ringing once every two months. The workshop (it used to be the school gym) is capable of dealing with 200 systems a week. It is here that equipment (like the BBC and Amstrad) is tested on receipt, repaired if necessary (and apparently it often is necessary), adapted for use in one of the Richardson systems, and quality control tested before release. The company also repairs all its own equipment coming back via customer services but says that ”a lot of equipment returned does not have a fault and this supports the view that many problems are due to operator error". The workshop is also responsible for research and development, as well as making parts needed to run systems. It's interesting to think that all this sprang from a pharmacist who, because he had seen a computer labelling system written by non-pharmacists which he thought was too slow, went out and bought a secondhand micro for £150 and wrote his own program m Basic for use in his own shop. It wasn't until two or three colleagues who had seen the system asked if they could have one that the market potential for a labelling program was realised and lohn Richardson Computers was bom. Programs in machine code followed. The rest is history.
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