When you give instructions to your patients, they listen. Many times, they trust what you say without knowing if you are telling them the truth or not. When you tell them to take medication, they do it without questions. Because of this, it is your job to inspire this confidence in your patients.
There are steps you can take to build trust between you and your patients, so they know for sure that you have their best interests at heart. You can find ways to show them their health is your priority. Doing so will lead to improved relations, patient follow through and long-term positive outcomes.
Below are a few actions you can take to raise confidence in patients.
Take Advantage of In-Office Dispensing
In-office dispensing is simply you prescribing and distributing medications to your patients at the point of care. You become the pharmacist, eliminating a myriad of issues. You save your patients massive amounts of time, prevent medication errors that are known to happen at pharmacies, and you can provide patients with proper education.
Medication that is dispensed in-office arrives with a higher level of safety, higher quality and protection, and easier to administer packaging. You are also able to share pertinent education about their medication. All of these give your patient improved confidence in both the medication and you.
Keep reading to learn how prepackaged medication used for in-office dispensing further improves patient assurance.
Quality Control
Quality control involves all the actions a company takes to make sure medicines are pure, safe and compliant with all laws and regulations. Without quality control, counterfeiting becomes easier for criminals, affecting the
Quality needs to be analyzed at all levels. From the initial combination of ingredients, compounding, sorting, packaging, shipping, distributing and even consuming are steps covered through quality control procedures.
If patients are given medicines that have the wrong ingredients, serious health hazards could occur. This could lead to malpractice or liability issues for your practice. The drug manufacturer could also be held responsible. Therefore many, including prepackaged companies, take extra steps to ensure the quality of their medicines.
To avoid any liability such as this, make sure the packaging company you choose to work with values quality control processes. Good packaging companies will be excited to tell you all the safety tests they have passed. They will want you to know they strive for perfection in every area, from sorting to labeling to shipping.
Easy to Read Instructions
Patients are often handed information flyers and their prescription bottles at the pharmacy. They are not discussed by the staff and yet the patient leaves with medicine they know little about but are expected to take every day.
They become leery of the medication is needed, or safe.
You can increase your patients’ confidence in their medication by teaching them, in person, how to take their medication. You can educate them when dispensing the importance of taking the medication, how to take it, at what time to take it and what to expect.
The more knowledge a patient has, the more confidence they have.
Provide Proof the Medication Is Good Quality
Manufacturing facilities must do a lot of testing. And then they must test their testing methods. If the way they test the quality of the drugs they produce is not giving them the answers needed, they must improve it.
They can do this by creating new testing methods or by improving existing testing methods. Analytical test methods must be validated during each phase of the manufacturing process. The FDA has established diverse types of validation tools.
One tool is designed to test process, while another validates cleanliness. Others include computer system validation, methods and documentation.
When you can provide proof of quality, through the extensive testing that began at the manufacturer, your patients will feel more secure in their treatment plan.
Medication is Clean and Safe
Pharmacies are not always the cleanest environments. Staff members unintentionally pass germs and sometimes cross-contaminate medications.
Dispensing companies prevent this from happening, meaning your patients can feel confident in the medicine they take.
For prepacking medication, temperature, humidity and air pressure are all crucial factors and must be heavily monitored. Using a clean room is essential. Prepacking companies take extra steps to follow classification guidelines. Clean rooms help companies remain compliant with Good Manufacturing Practices.
Prepackaging facilities must follow strict guidelines when it comes to keeping their environment clean. Pharmacies are not held to the standards repackaging facilities are required to follow. From room temperature to how often and with what counters are cleaned.
When you can prove the safety and cleanliness of medication to your patient, their trust in your treatment will grow.
Avoid Medication Errors
Pharmacists never intentionally make medication errors. They are accidents. These accidents include getting similar looking medications mixed up. Meaning, the patient receives a medicine that resembles their own medication in appearance, but not ingredients.
Another example of an error is when patients are accidentally given someone else’s prescription. Furthermore, giving a patient the wrong dose of the right medicine is more common than you think.
All these errors exist and happen far too often. All these errors can be fatal.
When dispensing in your office, you have more control over what you dispense and how. Plus, the packaging used is created to avoid errors. The doses are individually packaged and labeled with expiration dates and instructions, making it simple for patients to use. Simple leads to secure.
The measures taken by prepackaging companies ensures your patients are receiving and ingesting the safest product available. The processes also protect the effectiveness of the drugs, allowing your patients to see improvements in their health.
When patients start to notice the positive differences in their health, they will attribute that to being your patient, not to taking the medications you prescribe. They will attest that the treatment you ordered works. They will feel more confident in your practices and won’t hesitate when you make recommendations or adjust their treatment plan.
Ultimately, you are the one to inspire confidence and you can do this using in-office dispensing with prepackaged medication.