Specialty Pharmacy Digital Transformation: What’s Next?

Holistic IT adaptation addresses key challenges such as data integrity and patient service delays. Digital-driven companies are embracing sustainable adaptation. You likely already know this, but does your IT partner?

A good IT partner will deliver technology services on your behalf. A great IT partner will learn your business. They tend to ask questions like, “how can we help you better serve patients, how can you remain competitive, cost-effective, and ensure your digital systems are up to date?” Technology, alone (without any business context), has not been the answer to dollars siphoned by inefficiency. Add regulatory issues and growing technology skill gaps to the equation, and it may seem you’re digging yourself an inescapable hole.

The CSI Group, in its 2018 State of Specialty Pharmacy Report, found that data processes will be a key factor in both patient services and in remaining competitive. Specifically, the report found that “40% of [specialty pharmacies] believe their patients have challenges coming onto service 20% of the time. This represents significant dollars lost either in delays or in patients having to switch to other therapies.” Delays, patient services, and driving outcomes can all be improved with a combination of system performance, data, and process.

Technology in a vacuum will not drive outcomes. For that, we’ll need to rethink the role of digital services.

Rethinking Digital

Instead of asking “what’s next?” the subject matter experts at AgileTHought tend to ask “what’s working?” How can we better serve patients, remain competitive, and ensure our IT systems are current while avoiding costly mistakes? How can we systematically drive out inefficiency without affecting operations?

Digital transformation is more of a skill than a state of being, one that requires three components (rooted in process, people, and tool) to be effective:

• IT experience
• Industry experience
• Adaptation as a skill

Most “heads-on-sticks” IT vendors operate at a pure IT level, limiting their ability to add value to an organization.

Industry experience is where IT vendors contribute holistically, understanding your processes and leveraging technology to solve problems. Today, many digital consultancies provide industry insight as well as technology services.

Adaptation as a skill, however, is driven by team empowerment and continuous training. It is vertical agnostic and takes into account cross-functional skill sets. It enables every-day system users to deliver valuable insight, and recognizes that systems, processes, and teams are part of a larger ecosystem.

How to Achieve Adaptation as a Skill

The CSI report goes on to say that “41% of [specialty pharmacies] said they could only service between 40% and 60% of the patients they receive.” There are a number of productivity hindrances, but focusing on business drivers, with an experienced team, will strengthen your operations regardless of the technology.

Focusing on customer service processes, for example, could be one solution, but what if you ran a deeper investigation and found duplicate patient records were slowing response time, or that RCM processes could leverage machine learning to detect bad debt, or that prior authorizations can be automated to save pharmacists time?

Industry experience drives digital modernization, but also provides the operational insight to know when to hit the brakes. We know this because we’ve experienced it, and, in one case, ended up saving our largest pharmacy customer four and a half million dollars – simply because our teams knew their system so well that they developed a workaround at one-tenth the cost.

Adaptation as a skill comes from a company-wide effort over time. There are no shortcuts. We have been working with leading specialty pharmacies for fifteen years. Our subject matter experts closely mentor team managers while the company invests in continuous training. Communication is open and problem-solving is cultural. These teams drive stronger outcomes because they’ve “grown up” in this environment.

Drivers of a Digital Strong Specialty Pharmacy

The subject matter experts at AgileThought have defined six core drivers in Specialty Pharmacy. In addition to full-stack development, QE, informatics, and QA, AgileThought offers unique, experience-driven services around:

Leverage automation, machine learning, and process improvements to drive down costs and increase productivity.

Reduce technology issues that impact your ability to enhance the patient journey and meet prescriber commitments.

Improve operational and manufacturer reporting and align line-of-business operations with core IT functions.

Remain current with government regulations and compliance guidelines.

Identify gaps in current systems, implement packaged applications and integrate existing platforms without impacting operations.

Create tools and functions to improve patient experience and remain competitive with system and process enhancements.