Ampharm

Company Overview  

AmPharm is a long-term care (LTC) pharmacy operating three pharmacy locations, serving approximately 5,700 patients across a diverse portfolio of care environments. In addition to skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), their reach also extends to assisted living facilities (ALFs), group homes for individuals with developmental disabilities (DDA), detox and rehab centers, and specialized geriatric and pediatric psychiatric care. AmPharm stands out due to its "high-touch" service model, which emphasizes community and clinician engagement. This dedication to personalized care, supported by advanced technology, enables AmPharm to deliver exceptional service and maintain a competitive edge in the long-term post-acute care market. 

The Challenge: Enhancing Operations for Scalability and Growth   

As AmPharm began to scale its operations and expand its reach, the limitations of its existing pharmacy management system became apparent. These constraints hindered their growth and made it challenging to maintain the high standard of personalized care they aimed for. Some of the challenges they recall facing included: 

• Workflow Inefficiencies: Manual processes and disjointed systems created bottlenecks throughout the order fulfillment process, from intake to final dispense. Identifying and addressing errors was a tedious manual task, lacking tools that provided detailed insights into business operations or helped identify opportunities for greater efficiency and process improvements. 

• Limited Facility Engagement: AmPharm's facility partners sought greater transparency and self-service options; however, the existing tools did not support the technology needed to meet these growing demands. As a result, facilities frequently contacted the pharmacy for routine requests, which consumed valuable staff time that could have been saved with better, more trackable communication methods. 

• Scalability Concerns: Building the high-touch engagement model they envisioned proved challenging due to systems that lacked real-time data sharing and robust, adaptable workflow capabilities. As a result, onboarding new facilities became a difficult process. 

The Solution: A Unified and Intelligent Framework  

Recognizing the need for a more advanced operating system to support their ambitious growth and high-touch service goals, AmPharm switched from their previous software vendor to the FrameworkLTC suite of pharmacy management software solutions. This pivotal move allowed them to transform their operations, leading to significant improvements across three core areas: workflow efficiency, facility engagement, and medication management. 

Improving Quality Assurance and Visibility with FrameworkFlow  

AmPharm has successfully integrated FrameworkLTC, FrameworkECM, and FrameworkFlow to create a highly optimized and quality-driven fulfillment process. Amy Cruse, the Vice President of Pharmacy Operations, highlighted the importance of these systems for their pharmacy operations, stating, "We use every workflow step that you can use in FrameworkLTC, and we're able to look at so many metrics now." Additionally, AmPharm has implemented a barcode-driven workflow using FrameworkFlow, significantly improving error prevention and efficiency across every stage of the fulfillment process. Amy explained, "FrameworkFlow forces staff to take specific actions, enhancing quality by alerting our team if they are packaging the wrong medication and catching errors before they leave the facility." 

FrameworkFlow also provides leaders with more granular visibility into every step of the dispensing process. Slater Lomax, Pharmacy Manager, highlighted the value of this insight into operations sharing: "FrameworkFlow helps identify not only if there was an error, but who made the error, and at what time by time-stamping every step of the workflow." This robust audit trail has been invaluable in identifying and implementing solutions to resolve operational gaps that may otherwise remain hidden. Slater shared the administrative impact of increased visibility with FrameworkFlow; their team identified that "82% of our errors happened within a certain timeframe during the day," which helped them identify and address these critical periods with increased pharmacist staffing.

Increased Scalability with Automation & Accuracy  

Leveraging automation capabilities in FrameworkECM, AmPharm has significantly reduced manual input time for refills and enabled its team to bring on new facilities without needing additional staff to meet the increased prescription volume. Slater shared the time savings the automation has brought and how it's elevated their staff, explaining: "the automated refill function that has saved us several hours a week of technician and pharmacist time." He expanded by sharing an example, "We had one of our techs leave, and we turned on the refill automation feature three days before she left. After a few days, I asked the other two input technicians how it was. And they said, 'It's not too different from when she was here'… that's awesome."  

AmPharm has achieved an incredible standard in terms of accuracy with a med error rate below 1% across the 100,000+ scripts they process in a month. Not only have their systems enabled them to achieve such a high accuracy rate, but they can also report on their most important business metrics. Amy shared the impact of quality metrics on winning and maintaining business: "In today's environment, customers want to know your quality metrics. Because of FrameworkLTC, we're able to track those metrics, and we can give them insight into our data and core metrics". This increase in automation and accuracy plays a cyclical role in allowing them to undertake new business and spend more time on facility service. "Using automation frees up our technicians and staff to work on some other things that maybe got pushed down on their list," Shared Slater. "It allows us to touch our facilities more with outreach on the phone, emails, and even facility visits." 

When asked what makes FrameworkLTC different from other systems available in the market, Slater said, "Other systems I have seen are not tailored to the long-term care niche in pharmacy. In comparison, FrameworkLTC is designed for pharmacies to use and grow operationally at a large scale." 

Revolutionizing Medication Management with FrameworkRxP  

The transition to FrameworkRxP from RxPertise was a pivotal step, transforming AmPharm's clinical consulting model and enabling them to provide a new standard of service and go from outsourcing consultants to bringing their consulting services in-house. Nate Schwab highlighted this shift's immediate and profound benefits, stating, "The conversion to FrameworkRxP was seamless. My favorite part is that it's always updated, and the feed is in real-time". This real-time data enabled a team-centric approach to managing admissions, resident notes, and ongoing Medication Regimen Reviews. Nate elaborated on the efficiency gains: "Our pharmacy consultants each take a week, and they do all the admissions for the whole pharmacy. With FrameworkRxP, I can log in to any community and consult all the new admissions, and then that data feeds into that facility in real-time".  

As part of their effort to improve their service offerings, AmPharm made the strategic decision to transition from an outsourced consultant pharmacist model to an in-house clinical pharmacist team. With this change, AmPharm has successfully expanded its in-house consulting team, growing from 2.5 contracted consultants to 5 in-house consultant pharmacists for "approximately the same cost" they were previously paying external contractors. When asked how this was possible, Nate emphasized investment technology as a key factor in this switch. Switching to FrameworkRxP saved "four to five hours a week" per consultant, representing "roughly a 10% workload reduction." By eliminating time-consuming and manual data import, consultants can spend more time on quality clinical review and hands-on community involvement for projects like quality assurance and accreditation rather than wasting time on manual administrative work. 

A New Approach to Facility Engagement and Medication Management  

AmPharm has implemented an innovative and high-touch facility engagement program with a three-tiered support team assigned to the facilities they serve. By assigning a dedicated, three-person team comprised of a pharmacy consultant, a field technician, and a care coordinator, AmPharm has revolutionized how it engages with the clinical staff in the communities it serves. A key piece in facilitating this new collaborative model has been investing in tools that streamline its ability to communicate and coordinate care with the clinicians it serves.  

FrameworkVision has become a critical tool for AmPharm to better engage with facility partners, fostering greater transparency and self-service. Nate praised its intuitive design, stating, "When we get a customer into FrameworkVision, it's intuitive, and it's real easy for them to find out what they need." Facilities now utilize FrameworkVision for a variety of use cases, including looking up delivery manifests and accessing original prescriptions or eMAR documents. One of the most valuable tools for facilities has been the pre-admission screening for drug costs functionality to price out new patients prior to admission, helping facilities make informed admission decisions, especially for residents with high-cost specialty prescriptions that could exceed the facility's Medicare Part A per diem and impact their fiscal margins. Nate explained the significant time savings for facilities: "They can go in FrameworkVision and grab whatever information or document they need for themselves so they can essentially create that eMAR and have their required documentation on hand without always having to call the pharmacy and have us fax it over."  

The team at AmPharm recognized that in the modern world of technology, having a customer portal is not just a nice to have; it's an expectation. When asked about the impact of facility-facing interfaces when it comes to winning new business, Nate shared: "Every new business that has come on board told us if we don't have a portal, they don't want to use us." FrameworkVision ensures AmPharm remains competitive with its service offerings in a highly regulated industry while providing a best-in-class customer experience, enabling it to grow, retain, and delight the clinicians and communities it serves.  

The Results: Better Efficiency and Elevated Patient Care  

AmPharm's strategic focus on elevating their business led them to focus on two key areas of their pharmacy: creating a fulfillment workflow designed for speed and accuracy and establishing highly collaborative and responsive relationships with the administrators and caregivers working in their communities. By investing in operational improvements with technology, they could ensure a high baseline standard of service, delivering the proper medication to the right patient at the right time. This investment in technology has been crucial in ensuring patients are well cared for while enabling them to streamline costs by identifying opportunities for iterative adjustments, automation, and improvements. With investments in hardware and software, their fulfillment workflow has evolved to be night and day compared to the heavily manual workflows of decades past.  

AmPharm's "high-touch" service model, amplified by the efficiency and transparency of the FrameworkLTC suite, is a critical differentiator in a competitive market. Nate emphasizes, "Our level of service is critical for us to grow." Facilities consistently praise AmPharm's dedicated care coordinators, and Nate recounted, "I get the same comment every time I walk into a community. The nursing staff knows their care coordinator by name and loves having a dedicated point of contact at the pharmacy. It's a different level of relationship that you can't put a number on." This personalized approach fosters trust and loyalty, enabling AmPharm to continue its growth trajectory. AmPharm is more prepared and confident about the future than ever, thanks to its world-class team and best-in-class tools. By prioritizing personalized, high-quality pharmacy services, AmPharm is well-equipped to navigate future challenges and continue delivering exceptional value to its patients.