PerceptiMed’s ScripClip looks to reduce will-call errors, improve efficiency

When PerceptiMed was launched in 2011, its founder, neurosurgeon Dr. Alan Jacobs, set out to ensure that adverse medical events resulting from a patient receiving the wrong medication or wrong dose could be avoided. To do so, the Silicon Valley-based company worked to develop its proprietary VeriFill technology, which powers its IdentRx medication verification device and can read manufacturer imprints on the sides of every pill as a medication is dispensed.

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As he worked within different pharmacies, Jacobs found that will call is another aspect of a retail pharmacy operation that, aside from being inefficient, also could lead to adverse health events if a patient is given the wrong medication as a result of an organizational mistake. So the company developed ScripClip, a will-call solution that matches a drug’s NDC number to a proprietary RF tag that’s scanned into a pharmacy’s management system. When a patient arrives to pick up their prescription and gives the pharmacy staff identifying information, the clip will light up, identifying the patient’s medication.

“In places where there are high numbers of prescriptions dispensed or multiple Smiths, Johnsons or Garcias, going through that alphabetically in many cases can take some time, and sometimes the wrong bag is given out and distributed,” Frank Maione, PerceptiMed’s chief business officer, told Drug Store News about the main situation ScripClip works to avoid.

ScripClip eliminates the requirement to organize prescriptions alphabetically because of the proprietary light-up technology, and it will identify multiple prescriptions for a patient that might not be in the same bag. Additionally, it makes easier the process of returning to stock prescriptions that haven’t been picked up after a while. Rather than requiring a paper manifest, pharmacy staff can query bags that were filled within a certain time frame, causing all of them to light up and allowing them to return to stock. And pharmacies that use a central fill model can scan multiple prescription bags into the pharmacy system simply by scanning a code on the outside of a bin to which its contents are tied. Additionally, it allows pharmacy staff to fill a prescription with an unclaimed one if there’s none left in inventory but there’s one waiting that hasn’t been picked up. In these scenarios, in addition to reducing the potential for errors, ScripClip also helps with pharmacy efficiency.

“We are finding, in our various pilots and where we are now commercially, that the aggregated amount of timesaving is minimally at about 30%, and greater in many instances,” Maione said. “We’ve done time and motion studies before our system went in and then afterward, and we’re finding ScripClip to be a significant timesaver for the store personnel, as well as the customer who might have been waiting in line for some time.”

PerceptiMed piloted the ScripClip technology at two pharmacies — one in Salinas, Calif., and the other in Lowell, Ark. Both pharmacies reported a 30% increase in pharmacy operational processes.

Maione said ScripClip is now commercial in four states.

“It’s leading-edge; it’s low cost; it requires no remodeling, no refixturing within stores; and it delivers on the promise of three things,” Maione said. “First, there’s quality assurance and higher overall customer satisfaction with greater HIPAA information protection. Second, it delivers on speed of delivery of medication that a customer has come to pick up. Third, financially, it covers both optimization of inventory in stores and it utilizes manpower more effectively within a business model.”