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If you're starting a delivery service at your pharmacy, you need to know how to coordinate transport for optimal efficiency, security and safety. Here are 3 transportation tips to follow when you start up.

Make Use of Route Planning Technology

Since a pharmacy delivery service is usually a loss leader oriented more at helping your community than increasing profits, it's important that you take steps to reduce how much money it costs you. While most pharmacies take the cost of vehicles and drivers into account, many forget about another big expense: paying staff to ensure everything goes to plan 'behind the scenes'. At many pharmacies new to delivering medicines, too much time is spent manually performing tasks like planning a delivery route for the drivers—time you have to pay employees for. Thankfully, in the modern day, there's no need to rely on manual route creation because you can purchase software that takes care of it for you. To save the most time and money, look for software that synchronises with your entire pharmaceutical operation and comes with a point-of-sale device capable of taking payments and signatures.

Purchase a Properly Insulated Vehicle

As a pharmacist, it's likely you know that medicines can quickly deteriorate in the wrong environment. If you put effort into making sure the cooling and heating systems on your premises protect your medications, don't forget to do the same when transporting them. If you let your patients' drugs spend all day in a hot car or van, the active ingredients could break down by the time they're delivered. This can lead to harmful consequences for patients, so it's important to avoid it at all costs by purchasing a properly insulated vehicle for your delivery operation. The ideal medication delivery vehicle will feature split refrigeration systems, allowing you to store and transport both room-temperature and chilled medicines. It should also have a back-up generator to keep your pharmaceuticals safe in the event of a breakdown.

Train Drivers in Dangerous Goods Transportation

While medications are meant to reduce harm, they can also be dangerous in certain situations—for example, during transportation. Certain drugs and medical supplies can be flammable, and some may even be toxic (cytotoxic cancer medicines, for example). Other medical supplies like mercury-filled thermometers and surgical spirit are also, unsurprisingly, hazardous. The concern is often greater if you'll be offering other transportation-based services as well, such as needle and medication disposal. Having your drivers trained in the transport of dangerous goods will ensure they know how to get medications from your pharmacy to patients' homes and back safely as well as how to act if they get into an emergency situation while transporting the drugs.