Pharmacy Consulting - Dealing with Computer Crisis

Walgreens is scrambling to notify thousands of customers who had prescriptions filled during a recent computer system crash according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. The company found that during the computer crash errors occurred that left many of the labels unreadable. Chuck Greener (a Walgreen's company spokesman) stated that it's computer system was printing labels with randomized characters as part of the instructions, making many unreadable and hard to understand.The computer crash that Walgreen's experienced occurred on Tuesday morning and affected stores all across the nation. In addition to the prescription labeling errors, many customers could not use their credit cards, while others simply could not get their prescriptions filled at all. Additionally, many stores were unable to process insurance payments for several hours. Walgreens stated that not all of it's stores were hit by the computer glitch and that some stores were only impacted for a few hours.Obviously in this day and age almost all pharmacies have become computer dependent. It is important to have policies and procedures in place to handle emergency situations when a businesses's computers crash or do not operate properly. It is also quite important to have a strategy in place to contact and notify customers of possible mistakes or errors (such as the label printing issues that Walgreens experienced). Proper training for your entire staff on how to handle such crisis situations is also something that all pharmacies should provide. This includes your pharmacists, technicians and cashiers.Is your pharmacy prepared to deal with such issues? If the answer is no then we strongly urge you to contact HCC today to get the process started. Healthcare Consultants has over 25 years experience in Pharmacy Consulting and has been assisting retail, hospital, specialty and compounding pharmacies establish the necessary procedures and policies to deal with such situations should they arise. This is a definite example of the old cliche "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" being important for your pharmacy business. Call us today at 800-642-1652 for a free consultation with one of our in-house experts to see how HCC can make sure your pharmacy business is prepared for any emergency.Bob Miller9/8/2014