Method and apparatus for inter-pharmacy workload balancing
First Claim
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1. A method of managing drug prescription orders within a computer network of pharmacy resources of a corporate entity, the method comprising:
- receiving, into electronic queues corresponding to computers of pharmacy resources in the computer network of pharmacy resources of the corporate entity, prescription work orders for execution, wherein each prescription work order includes a physical preparation part and an information processing part, each pharmacy resource in the computer network of pharmacy resources is at a different physical location and includes at least one employee and a corresponding computer, each corresponding computer is configured to execute at least a portion of each queued prescription work order, and the computers of the pharmacy resources in the computer network are communicatively coupled to each other via a network server;
calculating, at the network server in the computer network of pharmacy resources, a workload for each pharmacy resource, the workload based on an employee type of the at least one employee and the employee type selected from a group of employee types including a pharmacist, a pharmacy technician, and a clerk;
determining, at the network server, a current workload distribution of the plurality of pharmacy resources based on the calculated workload of each pharmacy resource;
designating, via the network server, a particular pharmacy resource as one of a sender or a receiver pharmacy resource based on the calculated workload of the pharmacy resource and the current workload distribution;
automatically routing at least a portion of a particular prescription work order from a sender electronic queue corresponding to the first computer to at least one receiver electronic queue corresponding to at least one second computer corresponding to at least one designated receiver pharmacy resource based on the current work load distribution;
fulfilling at least the portion of the particular prescription work order at the at least one designated receiver pharmacy resource and fulfilling a remainder portion of the particular prescription work order at the designated sender pharmacy resource; and
delivering the fulfilled particular prescription work order to a desired physical location.
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Abstract
The system distributes workload amongst a plurality of pharmacy resources that are connected by a computer network. Work orders are queued at each pharmacy resource and redistributed based on existing workload distribution, capacity of pharmacy resources, and/or product demand.
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Citations
25 Claims
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1. A method of managing drug prescription orders within a computer network of pharmacy resources of a corporate entity, the method comprising:
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receiving, into electronic queues corresponding to computers of pharmacy resources in the computer network of pharmacy resources of the corporate entity, prescription work orders for execution, wherein each prescription work order includes a physical preparation part and an information processing part, each pharmacy resource in the computer network of pharmacy resources is at a different physical location and includes at least one employee and a corresponding computer, each corresponding computer is configured to execute at least a portion of each queued prescription work order, and the computers of the pharmacy resources in the computer network are communicatively coupled to each other via a network server; calculating, at the network server in the computer network of pharmacy resources, a workload for each pharmacy resource, the workload based on an employee type of the at least one employee and the employee type selected from a group of employee types including a pharmacist, a pharmacy technician, and a clerk; determining, at the network server, a current workload distribution of the plurality of pharmacy resources based on the calculated workload of each pharmacy resource; designating, via the network server, a particular pharmacy resource as one of a sender or a receiver pharmacy resource based on the calculated workload of the pharmacy resource and the current workload distribution; automatically routing at least a portion of a particular prescription work order from a sender electronic queue corresponding to the first computer to at least one receiver electronic queue corresponding to at least one second computer corresponding to at least one designated receiver pharmacy resource based on the current work load distribution; fulfilling at least the portion of the particular prescription work order at the at least one designated receiver pharmacy resource and fulfilling a remainder portion of the particular prescription work order at the designated sender pharmacy resource; and delivering the fulfilled particular prescription work order to a desired physical location. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
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15. A system for distributing pharmacy prescription processing workload amongst a plurality of pharmacy locations, the system comprising:
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a network of a plurality of pharmacy locations of a corporate entity, each of the pharmacy locations in the plurality of pharmacy locations including at least one employee; a client computer located at each pharmacy location programmed to accept prescription work orders into an electronic queue, execute at least a portion of each prescription work order and calculate a workload for a corresponding pharmacy location based on an employee type of the at least one employee and a number of prescriptions handled by the corresponding pharmacy location per available man-hour, wherein; each prescription work order in the queue includes a physical preparation portion of a prescription and an information processing portion of the prescription, the employee type is selected from a group of employee types including a pharmacist, a pharmacy technician, and a clerk, and the available man-hour for the corresponding pharmacy location is based on an availability of the at least one employee; and a server computer programmed to collect workload data from the plurality of pharmacy locations, determine a target workload distribution based on a current workload distribution and to designate each client computer at each pharmacy location as one of a sender or a receiver, so that a designated sender client computer routes a first portion of a particular prescription work order in a corresponding queue of the designated sender client computer to a first designated receiver client computer and a second portion of the particular prescription work order to a second designated receiver client computer based on the target workload distribution. - View Dependent Claims (16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22)
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23. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for distributing pharmacy workload across a plurality of pharmacy locations of a corporate entity, the computer-executable instructions stored on a memory of a network server and comprising:
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a first routine receiving work orders for a first pharmacy location from the plurality of pharmacy locations into a first pharmacy location electronic queue for execution, wherein the first pharmacy location includes at least one employee and a first computer, the first computer is configured to execute at least a portion of each work order, and each work order includes a physical preparation portion of at least one prescription to be filled and an information processing portion of the at least one prescription to be filled; a second routine calculating a workload for the first pharmacy location, wherein the workload is based on an employee type of the at least one employee and the employee type selected from a group of employee types including a pharmacist, a pharmacy technician, and a clerk; a third routine determining a target workload distribution based on the workload for the first pharmacy location and a workload of other pharmacy locations from the plurality of pharmacy locations, wherein each other pharmacy location includes at least one other employee and a corresponding computer configured to execute at least a portion of each work order; and a fourth routine routing one of the physical preparation portion or the information processing portion of a particular work order from the first pharmacy location electronic queue to a second pharmacy location electronic queue based on the target workload distribution, and routing the other of the physical preparation portion or the information processing portion of the particular work order from the first pharmacy location electronic queue to a third pharmacy location electronic queue based on the target workload distribution, wherein the computers of the plurality of pharmacy locations of the corporate entity are communicatively coupled to each other and to the network server. - View Dependent Claims (24, 25)
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Specification