2. It is critical to guarantee that patients and staff are in proximity for the least amount of time possible.

Existing in-person processes to convey vaccine information, record personal information and capture consent should be eliminated or at least minimised. In so far as is practicable, these steps should be undertaken remotely.

3. Unnecessary phone calls should be avoided.

Phone calls interrupt your pharmacy’s workflow and negatively impact your teams’ productivity. Substituting the in-person gathering of personal information or consent with a phone call will be counter-productive. Equally, the scheduling of the appointment without a phone call will be critical to maintaining productivity.

The conflicting requirement to increase the number of vaccinations whilst maintaining social distancing to keep staff and patients safe, place significant demands on the pharmacy. Not to mention how to do so as efficiently as possible within tight budgetary constraints.

Your pharmacy’s website is the ideal channel to help solve these problems and can replace the in-person and phone organization of the vaccination. Done correctly, your website can securely help to schedule, record consent, and gather personal information efficiently and remotely.

Brought to you by the IPU and developed by Refill Assistant, the Pharmacy Services Booking Engine helps you to implement an online appointment booking service quickly and easily. 

It is a self-service tool for patients to schedule an appointment, provide personal information, authorise to be contacted as per GDPR and agree to the service specific consent in question, for example a flu vaccination injection for adults. The booking engine will allow pharmacies to prepare in advance and get ready for the expected surge in demand for vaccinations.