Between visits
The repeat is due.
Nobody has to ring.
Set a reminder at the counter when you hand over a repeat. A few days before the next one is due, the patient gets one short message, replies YES, and it lands in your queue as a task. When the bag is ready, they hear about it.
In designThis is being shaped with our pilot pharmacies now, and it is not available yet. A reminder is a new kind of contact with a patient, so the data-protection review comes first. The mock-up below runs on made-up patients.
The thing itself
A week of repeats, in two minutes.
Press Play and a week goes by: messages go out, replies come in, a pharmacist approves a task, a bag goes out, and one patient says something has changed. Press S to set a reminder the way you would at the counter, or drag a card from one column to the next.
One repeat, start to finish
Ten seconds at the counter. One word from the patient.
Mary collects her monthly repeat on a Monday. This is everything that happens next, and who does it.
At the counter
Ten seconds, while the bag is on the counter.
Type the last few digits of her mobile. Mary appears, the rhythm is already set to 28 days, you press save. No medicine names are needed, and nobody types a prescription twice.
On her phone
One message, five days before it is due.
It goes out inside your opening hours, in English or Ukrainian. It names no medicine and no condition, because a message on a lock screen is read by whoever is holding the phone.
In your queue
YES becomes a task.
Her reply lands in the same queue the phones feed, already matched to her. A pharmacist approves it exactly as they would a phoned-in repeat. That step never moves.
Ready
“Ready to collect” goes out when the bag is done.
On the channel she replied on, in her language. Nobody rings her, and she does not ring you to ask.
Collected
The next reminder sets itself.
Same rhythm, next month. If that was the last repeat on the script, the card says so, and the next message tells her she needs a new prescription from her GP instead.
Hi Mary, it’s your pharmacy. Your regular prescription is due soon. Reply YES and we’ll have it ready for you, or tell us if anything has changed.
YES
Grand, we’ll get that ready for you.
Hi Mary, your prescription is ready to collect.
On the patient’s side
The patient’s whole job is one word.
No app, no login, no form. The message arrives where they already talk to you, and the answer is YES.
- No medicine is ever named. The detail only ever follows the patient’s own reply.
- One message per repeat. No reply in two days becomes a call for your team, never a second nudge.
- “Changed”, “stopped” and “in hospital” are answers too. Nothing is prepared, and the card asks for a person.
- STOP ends it, at any time. The sentence you said at the counter to start it is on the record, word for word.
On your side
Six columns. Every repeat is in one of them.
The board is for planning the week. The work itself stays in the queue you already watch, so there is no second list to keep an eye on.
What it removes
Six steps by hand become two.
Both of them are yours to keep.
Most of a repeat is answering, asking and writing down. Those are the parts that go.
Someone does it by hand today Your team, and it stays that way Automatic
The two that remain are the two that should. A pharmacist approves every repeat, and your team prepares it. A reminder is a nudge, not an order, and nothing is ever prepared on the strength of one.
What pharmacists ask first
The straight answers.
Where do the prescription details come from?
To begin with, from you, at the counter. A reminder is a date, a rhythm and a way to reach the patient. It does not need the medicine names, and the message never uses them. You can add them to the card for the bench if you want them there.
Later, from your PMR’s dispensing record, so due dates can be worked out for everyone without anyone setting anything. That step has its own data-protection review, and it comes second.
Why not take them from Healthmail?
Healthmail tells your PMR what the GP prescribed, on the day it was written. A reminder needs to know what was dispensed and when, how many days it covers, and how many repeats are left. Your PMR knows that; the GP’s email does not. Where Healthmail does help is the other direction: when the repeats run out, the renewal request to the GP becomes a task on the board.
Which medicines get a reminder?
Your call, item by item. Controlled drugs, benzodiazepines and “as required” items never do. Anything you order in, such as high-tech medicines, gets a longer lead so there is time to have it on the shelf.
How does the patient agree to it?
At the counter, in one sentence you say out loud. The screen shows the words, and you tick the box only if they say yes. Those exact words go on the record. If they say no, the reminder still saves, as a note for your team and not a message to them.
What about patients without WhatsApp, or without a mobile?
A text message where that is possible. A patient with a landline only appears on the board as a call for your team, and nothing is sent.
When can we have it?
Not yet. It is in design with our pilot pharmacies, and the data-protection review of proactive messages comes before the first real one is sent. If you would use it, tell us now, because the pharmacies who answer early are the ones who decide how it works.
In design now
Would you use this? Tell us what it has to do.
How many days’ notice. Who sets it at the counter. Which items never get one. The answers from working pharmacies are what the first version is built from.