WINTER 2026 I RETAIL/COMMUNITY • SPECIALTY • LTC
22
CONTRIBUTED BY NICHOLAS SHANOS, RPH, OWNER OF SUBURBAN PHARMACY, INC.
QUESTION & ANSWER
Q. How can a Pharmacy Management System (PMS)
streamline prescription workflows and reduce
dispensing errors?
A PMS can streamline multiple stages of the prescription workflow,
from receiving electronic prescriptions through verification and
dispensing. Typical capabilities include barcode scanning with
lot and expiration information to support DSCSA requirements,
automated drug interaction checks, and real-time clinical alerts,
as well as access to integrated third-party resources such as Facts
and Comparisons and clinical pharmacology tools. Some systems
also incorporate pharmacist verification safeguards for “Tall Man
Drugs” (sound-alike and look-alike drugs), as well as a structured
five-point prescription check during verification. Additional features
often include capturing patient acknowledgments at pickup and
implementing a pharmacist hard-stop at the point of sale to ensure
that appropriate patient counseling is provided when needed.
Q. What level of integration does the PMS offer with
EHRs, IVR systems, fulfillment robots, and other
existing pharmacy technologies?
There are many interfaces between PMS and third-party systems
through their API. The interface that I use at Suburban is with
EyeCon for verifying and counting. It stores pictures of the actual
tablets counted, and it can force a double count of controlled
drugs. It also records drug serialization.
A pharmacy management system built to interface easily with
other technologies supported by a well-designed API — enables
fast, streamlined development and rollout of new integrations.
This approach allows pharmacies to adopt new tools quickly
without disrupting existing workflows.
The PMS I use offers integration with:
• Many dispensing machines and compliance packaging:
Parata, RxSafe, BlistAssist, and others.
• Pill counters: Vivid and EyeCon.
• Many IVRs: however, we don’t use IVRs to handle incoming
calls to the pharmacy. I believe it’s important to have a person
answer the phone. I do utilize the outbound patient messaging
features, including text, voice, and email.
• EHRs: EPIC, Athena NextGen, Cerner, and about 12 LTC
eMAR vendors.
Your PMS should serve as the “hub of the pharmacy” and be
designed to connect with a wide range of third-party solutions,
giving pharmacies the flexibility to work with the vendors they prefer.
Q. In what ways does the PMS support
compliance, audit readiness, and regulatory
reporting requirements?
The PMS software can maintain comprehensive logs of all
transactions, including prescription fills, controlled substance
tracking, and patient communications. These platforms often
support automatic nightly reporting to state prescription monitoring
programs (PMPs) and include integrated tools, such as a built-in
PMP gateway to check in real time during data entry and pharmacist
verification. The system we use also provides auto-reporting of vaccines
to state registries at scheduled intervals and can generate provider
notifications, such as sending a fax to a patient’s physician after a
vaccination is processed. In addition, routine cloud-based backups are
commonly performed, with some systems updating as frequently as
every 15 minutes.
Q. How does the PMS optimize inventory
management to prevent stockouts, manage
expirations, and reduce waste?
The PMS we use at Suburban employs a perpetual inventory
system that supports electronic ordering from multiple wholesalers
and automatically updates on-hand inventory through electronic
invoicing. The platform enables tracking of expiration dates as
items are received and even allows for negative inventory levels,
which works great for a very high-cost drug to make sure the claim
is adjudicated before ordering.
In addition, Suburban’s PMS integrates DSCSA functionality
directly into the platform, utilizing the new EPCIS standards
for ordering and receiving. It can scan incoming inventory, verify
shipments, and quarantine any questionable or incorrect products so
the rest of the order can be used immediately. The system also offers
an API that supports integration with third-party DSCSA vendors.
Q. What clinical decision support features are built
in for drug interaction checks, contraindications,
and patient safety alerts?
It’s essential to use a PMS that has significant clinical features.
One great feature our PMS has is the ClinicalSmart Check, which
automatically checks for drug interactions, allergies, duplicate
therapies, and contraindications based on patient profiles and
other custom alerts. Alerts are triggered during prescription entry
and then during verification.
PHARMACY
S Y S T E M S ,