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How Missing Traceability Data Might Affect Pharmacy Patients

If accurate and complete pharma traceability data isn't supplied to pharmacists, they may end up scrambling to serve the patients in front of them. Pharmacy leaders discuss how this may affect relationships with nonconforming trading partners.

HDA Traceability Seminar dispenser panel (from left): moderator Ronald Bone, HDA Consultant, Ronald N. Bone Consulting LLC; Ian Cannell, Kaiser Permanente; Lisa Schwartz, National Community Pharmacists Association; and Leon Nevers, H-E-B.
HDA Traceability Seminar dispenser panel (from left): moderator Ronald Bone, HDA Consultant, Ronald N. Bone Consulting LLC; Ian Cannell, Kaiser Permanente; Lisa Schwartz, National Community Pharmacists Association; and Leon Nevers, H-E-B.

There are a number of hurdles related to dispensers complying with Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) requirements including:

  • They aren’t being left with much time to implement data exchange systems
  • Some smaller or less-connected players may be unaware of the requirements and the need to prepare
  • The costs to implement traceability systems may be prohibitive, particularly without a way to directly recoup the funds

The HDA 2022 Traceability Seminar this week in Washington D.C. shined a light on the dispenser (pharmacy) community’s efforts. During a panel on dispenser data flow, an audience member asked how data exceptions might affect patients in real-time. In the scenario he described, a pharmacy tells a patient to come in at 10am when their prescription is set to be filled, but they discover upon attempting to fill that they haven’t received traceability data for that product and cannot fill the prescription.

[Editor’s note: Panelists spoke on this topic during the Q&A portion from the audience. As such, their statements were made off-the-cuff. They may include conjecture and do not necessarily reflect official policies.]

Leon Nevers is the director, procurement and business development at H-E-B. He explained that when a pharmacist is out of an item, there are typically opportunities to fill other items, whether by offering an OTC medication or sourcing from a DSP [distance selling pharmacy] depending on customer needs. “On the labor impacts side, I have a pharmacist that really should just be delivering a prescription to the customer in the way that they want it. That's a dissatisfaction for the customer when they don't receive that, so that's step one. Step two is that pharmacist now that has to go and counsel that customer and probably walk them out to the to OTC aisle or walk through what their options are and that's time,” he said.

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