We're excited to celebrate one of our clients, Ryan LaVarnway, who was featured in the May/June 2023 edition of ComputerTalk for the Pharmacist. In the interview, Ryan discussed his experience working with Datarithm and the powerful results he has seen. Here are a few highlights but you can read the article in its entirety, here.
Ryan LaVarnway, R.Ph., offers a real-life example of just how important it is to bring technology to bear on inventory management. He owns three pharmacies in New York: Brooks Pharmacy in Hamburg, Attica Pharmacy in Attica, and Island Prescription Center in Grand Island. “Inventory is one of our biggest expenses,” says LaVarnway, “and between my three locations I’m managing thousands of different NDCs [National Drug Codes].” Even using the inventory management tools within his pharmacy system was too labor-intensive, so LaVarnway brought Datarithm in to streamline the process.
The decision to add Datarithm made an immediate impact. “The first thing I did with Datarithm was to run an analysis of historical dispensing data that produced a report that gave suggestions for stock to return to the wholesaler and medications that I could move among my locations to improve turns,” says LaVarnway.
It was difficult for LaVarnway to keep up with maintaining optimized on-hand levels for all of his inventory, considering the large number of NDCs spread across his three locations. “Especially for a multistore owner,” says LaVarnway, “one of the most valuable things that Datarithm brings is a highly efficient way to stay current on what, at each location, is a return opportunity and what can be moved to a different pharmacy if it’s in higher demand there.” Datarithm identifies drugs for which there is a full package quantity as opportunities for returns to a wholesaler. For drugs that aren’t eligible for a return, LaVarnway gets recommendations for which of his locations can best use the inventory.
Ryan LaVarnway reports reducing his inventory costs by six figures, with most of that amount coming from identifying surplus inventory. He’s also increased his turns by four points, which combines with his lower inventory investment to significantly improve cash flow.
It’s always a good time to focus on your inventory, according to Ryan LaVarnway, and there’s technology out there that will help you raise your game. “Pharmacy owners can’t afford to have a bunch of money just sitting on the shelves,” he says. “We got to a point where it was clear that we needed to eliminate manual processes. You can’t manage inventory efficiently if you are going by feel and your best guesses. Once we brought Datarithm in, we saw immediately how much overstock and dead stock we were carrying. We cleaned all that up for a strong return on our investment right away."
You can read the full article, Challenges and Solutions for Pharmacy Supply Chain Management, here.
