“It is much more organised than it used to be”
Golden Tote is a dispensary management system which is transforming the way in which pharmacies across the country operate on a day to day basis. It is designed to remove some of the strain from the busy working day of a pharmacist and allow digital integration to manage the dispensing processes, improving efficiency, reducing workload and increasing customer safety. It integrates seamlessly into your existing PMR to allow for significant cost savings and to reduce stockholding.
Navid Ghasemi has worked in the pharmacy industry for almost a decade, and currently is the superintendent pharmacist and owner of Newport Pharmacy in Essex. Navid and his team started using Golden Tote at the end of May, and despite initial reservations he was very pleased with the improvements it made to the efficiency of the dispensary processes, particularly from a financial standpoint.
“My main worry was putting all my eggs into one basket with PHOENIX, but we carried out a price check and realised it was actually really beneficial to implement Golden Tote within our pharmacy. We have been really pleased with the results so far. It’s often easy to focus on price but actually it’s the cost of dispensing that pharmacies should really concern themselves with. Golden Tote significantly reduces the time and resource tied up in the dispensing process, therefore reducing the overall dispensing cost and improving profitability. As a result as I am now able to focus on areas of growth such as services etc. The cost of dispensing is often overlooked, but it’s a critical element pharmacists should consider.”
“We have been really pleased with the results so far”
Before introducing Golden Tote, Newport Pharmacy typically operated in the traditional manner when it came to day to day dispensing. Since implementing Golden Tote however, the store has seen a dramatic improvement in terms of organisation, something which has made a significant difference to the day to day working lives of his staff: “We used to do it the old fashioned way, but this was taking up quite a lot of our time and I was quite involved in the process. It used to be much more chaotic than it is now, it is a lot more organised and we don’t need to put all the stock away in the mornings. We only have a few products that come in, 100 lines maximum, rather than 500 packs of products.”
As with pharmacies across the country, the coronavirus pandemic placed strain on Newport pharmacy as the team’s workload ramped up in order to continue to deliver excellent service to customers in the face of increased demand. Navid and his team didn’t have Golden Tote installed during the height of the pandemic, however he was quick to point out that life would’ve been significantly easier had he and his staff had the functionality of Golden Tote at their disposal in 2020. “I think it would’ve helped a lot during the peak of COVID. We would’ve definitely been able to cope a lot better, we fared really well given the circumstances but we could’ve done even better had we had the luxury of automated dispensing”.
When asked whether or not he would recommend Golden Tote to other pharmacies, his answer was very simple: “Yes definitely. It has made things a lot easier and significantly reduced stress levels for me and my staff. It has given me a lot more time to spend at the front of the pharmacy, allowing me to interact with customers and focus on delivering our services”.