Case Study: Streamlining a Canadian Pharmacy Operations with Intelligent Automation

Overview

A prominent pharmacy chain in Canada faced challenges with manual, time-consuming processes such as prescription work order creation, inventory management, and more. Auxiliobits stepped in to implement intelligent automation solutions, leveraging RPA, AI, OCR, and LLMs, to streamline operations, enhance accuracy, and improve efficiency across their pharmacy workflows.

The Challenge

Pharmacy operations involve numerous routine, often repetitive tasks, which are essential to ensure smooth service delivery. However, these manual processes create inefficiencies, increase the risk of human error, and consume valuable staff time that could otherwise be spent providing customer care. Among the key pain points were:

Prescription Work Order Creation: Pharmacists and assistants had to manually enter prescription details from scanned or PDF documents into the Kroll pharmacy management system, a time-consuming and error-prone process.
Inventory Management and Balancing: The chain’s multiple pharmacy locations struggled to keep inventory balanced, often resulting in stockouts or surpluses that impacted service.
Document Processing: Additional documentation for prescription updates, insurance forms, and compliance records required manual processing, which slowed down service and impacted accuracy.

Solution

Auxiliobits deployed an intelligent automation solution tailored to the unique needs of the pharmacy sector. By utilizing RPA and advanced AI technologies, the solution streamlined operations and ensured consistent, reliable performance across critical workflows.

Key Components of the Solution

Automated Prescription Work Order Creation
The RPA bot captures data from scanned or PDF prescriptions, using OCR technology to recognize handwritten and printed text accurately. It then inputs this data into the Kroll system, ensuring accurate work order creation without manual intervention.
Inventory Management and Balancing Across Locations
Automated workflows streamline inventory tracking across the chain’s multiple locations, ensuring the right stock levels are maintained. The RPA bot tracks real-time inventory levels and triggers restock requests or transfers as needed to balance inventory across pharmacies.
Document Understanding and Processing with AI and LLMs
Document understanding and natural language processing (NLP) capabilities allow for efficient processing of complex pharmacy documents like insurance claims, compliance forms, and refill authorizations. The LLM analyzes content contextually to categorize and extract relevant data, reducing administrative burden and error rates.

Compliance and Reporting Automation
Automated reporting and compliance checks streamline regulatory adherence, tracking compliance data across pharmacies and preparing reports for audits or internal reviews.

Additional Pharmacy Processes Enhanced by Automation

Beyond the core workflows, Auxiliobits identified and automated additional pharmacy processes, including:

Prescription Refills and Reminders: Automated alerts and refills trigger based on patient records, minimizing missed medications.
Billing and Insurance Verification: Streamlined claims processing with document understanding capabilities that analyze insurance forms, cross-reference with patient data, and trigger relevant actions in the billing system.
Patient Notifications: Automated notifications for patients regarding prescription readiness or medication adherence reminders, improving customer engagement.

Results

The automation solutions provided significant operational improvements for the pharmacy chain:

Reduction in Processing Time: Prescription work order creation time was reduced by 75%, allowing staff to focus on patient care.
Inventory Efficiency: Automated balancing reduced surplus stock and minimized stockouts across pharmacy locations, saving an estimated 20% on inventory costs.
Error Reduction: Document understanding and AI-driven data extraction decreased errors by over 80%, leading to improved accuracy in prescription and billing processes.

Enhanced Customer Experience: With faster work order creation, inventory consistency, and proactive notifications, customer satisfaction scores increased by 25%.

Conclusion

Auxiliobits’ intelligent automation solution has transformed pharmacy operations, reducing manual work, optimizing workflows, and delivering measurable improvements in productivity, accuracy, and customer satisfaction. This case demonstrates how RPA, coupled with AI and document understanding, can address common challenges in the pharmacy sector, ensuring a streamlined, compliant, and patient-focused service model.