Running an effective pharmacy, like all businesses, requires a good understanding of data. From knowing your most profitable OTC offering to determining the most appropriate patient to approach regarding the winter flu jab, information is key when it comes to driving revenues.

Here are three sources of data within your pharmacy that can make significant differences:

Using data to drive the wholesale purchase process

Data plays a key role in helping to cut costs and increase margins, allowing you to take advantage of the best options available to your pharmacy. Order management technology can provide significant cost savings by ensuring that stock is bought at the most competitive prices available from suppliers. When going through the ordering process, crucial influences have to be considered when buying from the wholesalers – the specific brand of drugs, the amount they have in stock and the cost. These different aspects mean that finding the most competitive price is often overlooked in place of the most convenient option that fits the criteria for the pharmacy, often because of the large amounts of information that would have to be gathered. However, order management software can automate this process for you. Not only will this save time, it can also deliver significant cost savings for your business.

Making the most of PMR data

The PMR system is the cornerstone of any pharmacy but its full capabilities are often overlooked. One cause of this is the failure to make use of the data available within a system. Patient data, for example, can include information relating to customers who are eligible for Medicine Use Reviews (MURs), flu jabs, or those who purchase repeat medicines and may require consultancy services. As well as providing possible sources of revenue to your pharmacy, using data in this way can also help improve the quality of service delivered to patients. Patient data can also include information concerning OTC purchases, allowing this service to be improved even further.

Using EPoS data to drive OTC sales

While the main purpose of an EPoS system is to record OTC sales, the data that is captured in the process can be a goldmine when driving merchandising activity in your pharmacy. Analysing OTC sales can help to determine the best sellers in your pharmacy, while supplementary data can also be used to track this against both regional and national statistics. This allows pharmacists to refresh and tailor stock in accordance to demand. Stock displays can be modified around best sellers and dead stock can be removed to refresh displays and encourage customer interest. As well as driving additional revenue through sales, effective use of data in this way can help also help you avoid having too much cash tied up in stock.

Community pharmacies harbour a rich amount of data which, if collected and used properly, can significantly enhance business operations. Information contained within pharmacy IT systems can not only play a key role in improving the quality of provided services for patients, it can also help to streamline day-to-day activities for staff. Crucially, when used to its full potential, data can help to shape business models in such a way as to maximise cost savings. All the information is there, so why not make the most of it?