Starting your retail pharmacy is a very exciting business venture as the healthcare sector is currently witnessing utmost growth. However, the pharmacy retail business can be very challenging and troublesome due to multiple reasons. There is an inherent risk and hence, it is important to manage the administration to overcome the
complexities. It also makes sense to understand the variables related to this business and then have a detailed plan or SOPs related to different functions. If you are ambitious in having a successful retail pharmacy business, you cannot overlook the importance of having well-defined SOPs for your business.
Why develop Standard Operating Procedures
The Standard Operating Procedures, also commonly known as SOPs, are well-written documents that help improve employees’ performance and increase the overall productivity in the business. The set of key documents serve as a guiding manual and thus offer step-by-step instructions about how a particular task can be completed with better efficiency. SOPs are an essential part of any organisation as they assist in obtaining uniformity in the operations. The employees are also able to perform better when it comes to the execution of a specific function. SOPs standardise the whole procedure, and the employees are expected to follow the procedure as described in the SOP documents.
Standard Operating Procedures, in general, vary from one business to another. For example, a retail pharmacy needs SOPs for a multitude of things, such as SOP for maintaining and ordering stock in Pharmacy. One of the things that Retail Pharmacy SOP should focus on is the inventory so that the stock which is in higher demand is never out of stock. For retail pharmacies, standard operating procedures have practices mentioned in them that need to be followed in certain events such as sterilising the products, grouping of products, etc. It is important to mention all such parameters in your SOPs if you want to run your retail pharmacy business successfully.
For example, for prescription medicines and OTC drugs, different types of processes need to be followed, and hence, it is important to mention the same in the SOP documents. Similarly, suppose certain medicines are contraindicated in a particular individual or can interact severely with certain other medicines. In that case, these details should be listed in the document for a more streamlined process in a pharmacy. Similarly, different SOPs are required for the logistics department and transport services as well. To put it simply, SOPs are required for quality assurance and control, human resource, production, maintenance and operation of equipment.
The well-managed SOPs are also required by your staff that are into the billing of the medicines. Thus, it is not wrong to say that SOPs for retail pharmacy is very crucial, and thus retailers need to invest their time to come up with well-defined SOPs for their business. Also, medicines and drugs are things that should not be taken in overdoses. Hence it is important to develop SOPs in the content or duration of dose, the peak of action, contraindications, interactions, etc.
An introduction of SOPs into retail pharmacy, not only for offline stores but digital platforms, should not be ignored. For example, your staff might sell a particular medicine to a person who has a known allergy to that medicine. Does your pharmacy take these details? Do you ask the buyer their medical history before they buy anything from your pharmacy?
The chances are that this kind of information is generally not taken into account. While it may still sound fine not to obtain these details for buyers of over-the-counter products, this information should be sought and recorded for prescription products. If SOP is available, mentioning that these details are important, the staff is less likely to be ignored. Also, in these times of pandemic, well planned and functioned SOPs are the need of the hour for the retail pharmacy business. You can go through Standard Operating Procedures-Inspection-PSI and Lloyds pharmacy standard operating procedures for better insights over the SOPs for the pharma industry.
Retail Pharma SOPs: Pharmaceutical Guidelines
The Standard Operations and Procedures can help the retail pharmacy overcome multiple challenges that the business can face in the market, such as marketing the pharmacy name, well-managed staff, inter-department communications and logistics, billing department, payment service, and account as well as other ethical practices. For all of these, it becomes essential to have a well-documented protocol that serves as a guiding manual for every department related to the pharmacy business.
SOPs provide a lot of benefits for any business vertical, and pharmacy is no different. For example, when it comes to ensuring quality management and assessment, SOPs can be a life saviour for the managing committee. Also, staff monitoring, a backup plan for employee shortage or absent employees, leave policy and justified shift rotation demand well-written standard operating procedures.
Besides this, as the country is dealing with the global pandemic and the pharmacy business is witnessing exponential growth, it is crucial to have guiding manuals. For instance, the staff may have to work overtime as a moral duty of their profession. Hence all these tasks need to be documented with the SOPs. When talking of adequacy of equipment and their use, retailers need to keep a tab on them for which proper documents are required. To say it all, good SOPs can ensure proper management and prompt interdepartmental communication in the retail pharmacy business.
The operations have to run smoothly for your pharmacy business to be a success, and it is easier to keep track of the operations with SOPs in place. Implementing procedures, establishing policies, and compliance documentation can help smoothen the pharmacy business, and this is not possible without Standard Operating Procedures.
Why YRC to define Standard Operating Procedures
At Your Retail Coach, we give utmost importance to the development of Standard Operating Procedures and understand these are very crucial documents. Operational excellence is required, especially for the pharmacy retail business and to ensure that our clients get a high level of operational excellence, we always come up with well-defined SOPs for them.
We have a team of experts working at YRC that can offer SOPs for every aspect associated with your retail pharmacy so that your business is more organised and productive. We understand that the pharmacy business requires a great deal of management and services. Hence, our in-house specialists will guide you in strategising everything related to Standard Operating Procedures that your pharmacy business needs. SOPs are the need of the hour for retail pharmacy, so contact Your Retail Coach today to make your pharmacy business a big brand.
