Pharma Solutions Pty Ltd has been founded by some of Australia's leading practicing pharmacists.

The PSLnet business is based on the vision that pharmacists can benefit in their day-to-day operations from the use of practical, simple, business processes that are supported by easy to use software.

PSL has teamed practicing pharmacists with leading e-commerce technologists to create the PSLnet Exchange, a simple to use, easy electronic business process for OTC and direct suppliers. PSLnet gives pharmacy the same electronic ordering convenience that they have enjoyed with the major pharmaceutical wholesalers for the past 15 years.

PSLnet provides a simple, fast, easy to use electronic trading environment that can be a single supply channel for pharmacists. The advantages for all participants in such a system are obvious:

• increased staff productivity and process efficiencies;
• decreased manual processes in pharmacy and at the supplier end;
• reduced errors associated with manual data entry;
• economies of scale and reduction in turnaround, time-to-market and billing cycles.

These result in cost and time savings for both pharmacists and suppliers.

Pharmacists derive their income from two major activities: dispensing fees from the filling of prescription medicines; and profits derived from retailing non-prescription over-the-counter medicines and other goods such as cosmetics and fashion items. Typically the revenue split is 80% from dispensing and 20% from retail activities.

Developments in medical practices, the evolution of the Australian health sector and a changing population have combined over the recent past to ensure that income from dispensing is limited both by legislation and by consumer demand factors. The business solution, therefore, is to remodel the proportions of pharmacy income by making the proverbial pie bigger, readjusting the balance by increasing revenue from the retail sector.

Australian community pharmacies sell some $2.4 billion per annum of non-pharmaceutical goods to their customers, against an operating backdrop of inadequate internal business and computer systems that often fail to integrate dispense and POS, front and back office functions and consequently lead to confusion, inefficiency and duplication of effort.

The founders of Pharma Solutions believe that continued independence for Community Pharmacy will require demonstrable evidence of value in the delivery of superior health outcomes and significant productivity gains. The alternative is almost certainly the future corporatisation of "retail" pharmacy.

The PSL vision centres on the belief of our founders that pharmacists should create and own the business processes that integrate Community Pharmacy and an efficient simple-to-use e-Commerce Business Model.

Similar business drivers created the buying co-operatives and marketing groups that led the retail transformation of pharmacies in the last era. In this era, the effectiveness of e-commerce will underpin the next retail transformation in community pharmacy.

© Pharma Solutions 2004

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