For the first time, a majority of facilities across the US now provide outpatient pharmacy services. Outpatient operations can deliver a strong boost to both patient satisfaction and the facility’s bottom line. While community hospitals have been slower to implement outpatient services, we expect that trend to change in the near term given the strong interest in adopting outpatient pharmacies.

For more information, visit pppmag.com/automation and select Ambulatory Automation, then Outpatient Pharmacy Automation.

This year saw an impressive 16% leap in the number of health systems operating outpatient pharmacies.

Facility size strongly impacts the likelihood of a health system operating an outpatient pharmacy.

A notable 84% of outpatient pharmacies are utilizing outpatient specific automation to simplify the prescription filling process, including e-prescribing, point-of-sale programs, bar code verification, automated pill counters, robotic dispensing, and IVR systems.

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Teaching facilities have made the strongest commitment to outpatient pharmacy adoptions.

Growth will continue to be the hallmark of these operations as 68% of facilities with outpatient pharmacies plan to expand their services over the next 3 years.

It is notable that facilities of all sizes are planning to expand their outpatient pharmacy services.