New solution designed to streamline retail pharmacies workflow freeing time to spend with patients
FDB (First Databank, Inc.), a provider of drug knowledge that helps healthcare professionals make more informed decisions has launched FDB NavigoTM, a cloud-based solution that brings a holistic approach to clinical guidance for medication safety risks to retail pharmacies. FDB Navigo provides targeted, consolidated and actionable clinical guidance so the information is at the pharmacists fingertips when they need it.
FDB developed FDB Navigo over the past three years in collaboration with a major retail pharmacy chain. It streamlines the retail pharmacist’s workflow by changing the focus of medication safety alerts and the way these alerts are presented and processed. Specifically, FDB Navigo is designed to provide actionable guidance pharmacists based on the most important risks to the patient as reflected in the patient’s clinical record in the pharmacy’s system. Furthermore, FDB Navigo consolidates the appropriate information across all major clinical domains—including drug interactions, allergies, precautions and dosing information—to eliminate the current “siloed” approach in which retail pharmacists need to consider alerts within each clinical domain. The solution can also learn from previous pharmacist actions—for example, eliminating alerts at prescription refill if they were already addressed in previous fills.
FDB Navigo assists the retail pharmacist to determine the “next best step” for each patient, whether that is to fill the prescription, provide additional guidance to the patient, or follow up with the patient’s physician. To provide further support, FDB Navigo identifies therapeutic alternatives when available based on the patient’s risk and equips the pharmacist with a scripted narrative that can be used when counseling the patient or when discussing interventions with the physician. These innovations help standardize pharmacist actions across all pharmacies to better ensure patient safety, while also improving the experience for the pharmacist, provider and patient.
FDB Navigo helps to significantly reduce the number of alerts retail pharmacists receive in order to alleviate their cognitive burden. Unlike legacy clinical screening solutions, this new solution helps retail pharmacists, who are increasingly taking on expanded roles in patient care, to easily identify and respond to medication risks pertinent to individual patients to improve patient safety. Ultimately, FDB Navigo gives retail pharmacists more time and cognitive space to consult with patients and offer more primary care services.
“As retail pharmacists take on greater responsibilities beyond filling prescriptions and providing general advice for taking medications, demands on their time and energy have increased,” said FDB President Bob Katter. “FDB is pleased to offer a transformative clinical guidance solution that helps pharmacists meet these demands and practice at the top of their license in order to best serve the health and safety needs of their patients.”
Many retail pharmacies now offer a broader range of patient care services such as administering vaccines; testing for HIV, COVID-19 and other conditions; prescribing certain medications; conducting mental health screenings; educating patients about protective health measures; and delivering medication adherence and medication therapy management programs for patients with chronic conditions. Given this evolving role, 92% of patients view their pharmacist as a healthcare provider.
Even though retail pharmacists increasingly provide direct care for patients, a recent survey concluded that they are only able to spend 10% of their time counseling patients. Furthermore, the same survey reported that 75% of retail chain pharmacists and 53% of independent retail pharmacists feel they should spend more time devoted to patient counseling and medication therapy management.
FDB Navigo can help retail pharmacists free up time to perform these important services. Real-world pharmacy data collected while developing the FDB Navigo solution indicates that between 30% and 50% of alerts that pharmacists currently need to review can be eliminated. Once FDB Navigo is fully deployed, retail pharmacists can expect to see a larger decrease in alert volume.
Chirag Patel, PharmD, senior product manager for FDB said: “FDB Navigo leverages additional patient information such as prescription history, previous alert outcomes, and universal medication schedule, to provide patient-specific context for clinical guidance, helping to ensure medication safety. This product development approach, also reflected in other solutions within FDB’s PatientFirst™ suite, helps retail pharmacists make more precise, evidence-based decisions.”
FDB will debut FDB Navigo at the NACDS TSE conference August 27-29, 2022, in Boston.