There’s no denying the importance or value of immunizations – both in maintaining community health and growing your pharmacy’s portfolio of clinical services. As the community’s most trusted and accessible healthcare provider, local pharmacists are uniquely positioned to leverage the personal relationships they have built with their patients to impact vaccine uptake through education, as well as physically administering immunizations. Sustaining a successful vaccination business is not difficult, but it does take a commitment to keep your practice’s workflow organized and streamlined, as well as having timely access to reporting information that affects immunization delivery.
Keep reading to learn about some of the tools the PrescribeWellness solution offers to support pharmacists in engaging and managing patients throughout the vaccination process.
Contact-free Vaccination Intake and Scheduling
Let’s face it, for the unvaccinated, social distancing isn’t going anywhere any time soon. This means that pharmacies must continue to keep their vaccine administration work area un-crowded and offer patients an easy – and safe – way to sign up for vaccinations.
Fortunately, the PrescribeWellness Contact-free Vaccination Intake and Scheduling tool allows pharmacists to send patients an email or text message that links to a pre-screening criteria form where they can enter basic demographics, report any exposure or symptoms, and even access a vaccine fact sheet. With the form submitted, the pharmacy can then electronically communicate back to the patient to either confirm or reschedule an appointment as necessary.
PrescribeWellness even offers pharmacies the ability to generate a QR code to display on their front door or window. When scanned, the QR code provides patients with the same pre-screening form and fact sheet. Whether the patient completes the form in the car, or at home, all of their information is uploaded into the system by the time they enter the pharmacy for their vaccine. Go “contact-free” with PrescribeWellness to streamline your intake and scheduling processes and stay in touch with your customers – with minimal risk and unparalleled convenience.
Vaccine Skippers
The reality is that patients miss vaccination appointments – or any appointment for that matter. Whether due to scheduling difficulties, forgetfulness, or cold feet from misinformation – the reasons may vary, but the solution does not. Community pharmacists can help turn the tide on this growing trend by removing these barriers and impacting vaccine uptake through patient engagement – which can be greatly enhanced with the PrescribeWellness solution.
Take the national COVID-19 vaccination effort, for example. As you know, both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines require a second shot to achieve full efficacy. Yet according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), despite more than 43% of the U.S. population now having at least one dose, nearly 8% of that population did not return for their second dose.1 This not only jeopardizes our chances of reaching herd immunity, but it also represents lost revenue opportunities for pharmacies.
Vaccines – Make it Easy
Getting vaccinated – whether for COVID-19 or the common flu – should always be an easy and convenient option for patients. A simple mantra to follow: make them easy to schedule and hard to forget. By utilizing the PrescribeWellness patient outreach campaign, pharmacists can send a series of automated patient communication reminders, ensuring vaccine appointments are attended and maximum protection is obtained. Reminder outreach also allows your pharmacy staff to plan its workload, as well as efficiently manage inventory by referencing the pharmacy clinical calendar.
This tool has been – and continues to be – particularly helpful when it comes to administering life-saving COVID-19 vaccines. By accessing the first dose’s National Drug Code (NDC), we can know if – and when – an automated second dose COVID-19 reminder communication needs to be sent.
Also, community pharmacists have the opportunity to leverage their personal relationships and educate their patients about the importance of immunizations and clear up any misconceptions they might have. Take a patient who has missed their second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. You can let them know how important that second shot is in achieving full protection, and more importantly, that it’s not too late to get it.
That’s right! According to the CDC, people can get the second dose of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines up to six weeks after getting their first dose.2
Reporting and Documentation
It goes without saying that documentation and reporting compliance is critical for operating a successful vaccination business. Further, as data requirements evolve and regulatory changes surface, it is imperative that pharmacies have the capabilities they need to stay ahead of the curve. Look at the current COVID-19 vaccine rollout, which has seen considerable expansion in reporting and documentation requirements – both at the state and federal level – due to expanded datasets.
The PrescribeWellness solution supports community pharmacists by facilitating integration and connectivity with state immunization information systems (IIS) to report COVID-19 vaccination data, as well as with federal entities – a distinct, but equally important requirement for any pharmacy procuring vaccinations. In addition to providing pharmacies with the technology to support the various reporting requirements, we have established best practices for each channel and process (more info available at our COVID-19 Vaccine Pharmacist Resource Center).
Want to learn more about how the turnkey PrescribeWellness solution can help community pharmacies implement and sustain a vaccination business? Fill out the form below, and we’ll be in touch!
