Conversion of an outpatient pharmacy to a mail-order pharmacy within a health system.

Abstract

Purpose: The establishment of a new outpatient pharmacy provided a strategic opportunity to repurpose and convert an existing outpatient pharmacy into a closed-door mail-order pharmacy within a health system. This article describes the steps taken to successfully make this change and evaluates the impact.

Summary: The mail-order pharmacy conversion project was divided into 3 phases: phase 1 (before conversion) from July through August 2022, phase 2 (conversion) from October through November 2022, and phase 3 (after conversion) from December 2022 through February 2023. Phase 1 included standardizing workflows with standard operating procedure (SOP) development, improving automation, determining staffing ratios, gathering baseline staff engagement data, and identifying primary and secondary outcomes of interest. Phase 2 encompassed SOP implementation and training of mail-order team members. Phase 3 involved evaluating available pharmacy floorspace, marketing mail-order services, and the second distribution of the staff engagement survey. The measured outcomes of this project were total prescription volumes, increase in total revenue, and staff engagement. Data collection was completed in phase 3.

Conclusion: The existing outpatient pharmacy was successfully converted to a closed-door pharmacy, and the associated prescription volume increased. Developing a strategic action plan to establish SOPs, calculate staffing performance metrics, and identify opportunities for growth and engaging frontline team members were essential to the success of this project.