Walgreens aims to 'revolutionize' prescription refills

Drug Store News, March 18, 1996 by Jim Frederick

DEERFIELD, Ill. -- The leaders of Walgreen Co. took a long look at their pharmacy business in the early 1990s, and came up with two conclusions. The first was that prescriptions: would account for half the company's sales by the end of the decade. The second was that the current system for filling those scripts was too slow and cumbersome to handle the increasing workload.

Thus was born Intercom Plus, a new pharmacy system developed in partnership with Andersen Consulting and first tested in Des Moines, Iowa, last year. Intercom Plus is more than just a new computer program: it's an attempt to streamline every component of the dispensing process, from the time a script is entered into the computer to the time it's picked up.

"It's not just a computer system," explained Walgreens spokesman Michael Polzin. "It also addresses pharmacy workflow. It will give the pharmacy techs all the administrative work, and allow the pharmacists to concentrate on what they went to school for--things like verification, patient reviews and counseling."

The system will be chainwide by early next year, and Walgreens president Daniel Jorndt doesn't mince words about its potential. It will, he predicts, "revolutionize the way prescriptions are filled in America." More specifically, he added, the system will allow Walgreens to boost average daily script volume from 230 per store in 1995 to more than 400 per store by the year 2000.

Some of the details are still sketchy, but the overall outlines of Intercom Plus have emerged. One major component of the system will be touch-tone refills, whereby patients can phone in their own script refill orders via a toll-free number [(800)-WALGREENS]. The interactive phone system, which was developed by St. Louis-based Talx Corp., prompts patients to enter the script number and time of desired pickup via their touch-tone keypad. The refill order is entered directly into the computer and the sequential workload of the pharmacy where the script was last filled.

"No one has to spend time taking down the information. With Intercom Plus it enters the workload automatically," said Polzin.

Walgreens marketed and tested the touch-tone system in Chicago, Nashville and Knoxville last fall, and by January had rolled it out to about 70 percent of its store base, according to Polzin.

Speeding up dispensing

Intercom Plus also speeds the dispensing process by "arranging the product in the pharmacy in a way that will save time, with the most commonly used medicines nearest to the filling area," said Polzin.

Another component is improved training: Intercom Plus is supported by a 17-hour CD-ROM interactive training program that self-trains all pharmacy staffers. "It standardizes training chainwide for our 17,500 pharmacy staff members," said Jorndt.