Clients challenged Integrated Informatics to come up with a better way to handle pharmacy orders without breaking the bank. In other words: "Fix our faxes, don't replace them."
So the company introduced the Paperless Pharmacy Order Management Systems (POMS). POMS is designed to reduce the amount of paper flowing around in pharmacies, thereby improving patient safety and operational efficiency.
POMS uses image capture technology, a database management system and workflow engineering to turn the pile of paper orders into an orderly queue of images. Images enter POMS through the pharmacy's existing fax machine or scanner. POMS scans the image, captures available indexing data, and places the image in a computer based queue in a database management system. A relational database management system maintains a detailed audit trail for regulators of who has had access to an order.
Before placing the next order in the queue, POMS combines advanced OCR (optical character recognition) and bar code recognition with a set of user defined rules to interpret the order content. When the order is successfully interpreted, POMS workflow engine can route the order to the appropriate pharmacist's inbox. Also OCR allows POMS to automatically bubble STAT orders to the top of the queue.
By combining OCR with order forms POMS ensures that STAT orders get worked first and routine orders are worked on a true first come first served basis. POMS tracks the status of all the unprocessed orders in the queue.
