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Medication synchronisation or Med Sync is a growing practice and we will see why in this article.
Medication synchronisation is the process of grouping a patient’s medications on the same renewal date, usually once a month. If several people in a household are taking regular treatments, it is even possible for those family members to be on the same renewal schedule.
Patients enrolled in this kind of programme usually receive a call/text message a few days before their prescriptions are due to be renewed. This notifies them that their refill is coming up and tells them when their medication will be ready.
The benefits of medication synchronisation for patients are manyfold:
A US study showed a 30% improved adherence rate for patients enrolled in a medication synchronisation programme compared to control patients. This in turn leads to an improvement in the health of patients who are less prone to complications. Indeed, it is known that in the United States, for example, non-adherence is the cause of 125 000 deaths per year and 10% of hospital admissions. There will therefore also be a reduction in healthcare costs.
In addition, patients collecting all their medication at once avoid multiple visits. They optimise their trips and save time! This is even more true for patients who live far from the pharmacy.
The benefits of medication synchronisation for pharmacies are also multiple:
Medication synchronisation programs encourage refills by patients. This in turn increases the number of prescriptions processed by the pharmacy and thus increases revenue. Without synchronisation, it is estimated that a patient refills approximately 7.4 times out of 12. With synchronisation, on average 11 out of 12 refills are made.
Also, it allows pharmacies to have more visibility on the work to be done and therefore to have: better planning of activities, better analysis of patient records and to anticipate potential problems such as stock-outs.
In addition, as prescriptions are analysed prior to the patient’s visit, more time can be spent with patients and improved, targeted consultations can be offered.
Finally, offering appointments to your patients will allow you to manage the flow of people in your pharmacy, allowing you to reduce waiting time and therefore improve customer satisfaction.
In order to offer this service to your patients, you need to consider certain criteria such as:
Using blister cards is a good way to synchronise your patients’ medication. To offer this service to your patients without the need for additional manpower, consider SynMed technology!
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