PickPoint Dispenses Good Medicine for Healthcare Professionals

By George Walsh, Hacienda Network Staff Writer

Few would disagree that getting the correct medical prescription in the correct number of doses is extremely important. Yet, in the high tech world we live in, is it really necessary for a pharmacist or other medical professional to count pills by hand? PickPoint Corporation, based at 4234 Hacienda Drive, Suite 101 here in Hacienda, thinks not.

PickPoint, founded in 1999, designs and distributes automated pharmaceutical storage and dispensing systems that strive to improve the safety and efficiency of delivering medications. The company's primary clients are community pharmacies, hospitals, HMOs and clinics. To help health care providers handle safety and productivity issues in managing prescription volume, PickPoint combines integrated planning and execution so that pharmacists can optimize the dispensing process.

"Richard Lee, our co-founder and executive vice president of business development, had worked in the pharmaceutical industry for around 30 years when we got started," says Kevin Delaney, co-founder and president of PickPoint. "He had an idea for a dispensing system - kind of like a vending machine - for pharmacies, that would allow them to prepackage and preposition products that they were dispensing on a consistent basis and allow them to turn their pharmacies almost into production units. With this idea in mind, the two of us and a third partner, G. Peter Swidzinski, got together and started the company." PickPoint currently has 15 employees.

PickPoint's product line includes the FlexRx Model Lx, a full-size dispensing cabinet designed to improve the productivity and efficiency of community pharmacies and outpatient dispensing environments. According to PickPoint, the Lx has successfully demonstrated 100% return on investment in less than one year in multiple, large chain settings. The FlexRx Model LxS is a secure medication dispensing cabinet for Department of Defense customers, Indian Health Services, remote clinics, and after-hours environments. The LxS allows hospitals, HMOs, and clinics to decentralize their dispensing process with centralized administration and replenishment. It is built of 14-gauge steel and features a triple locking door with "bullet-proof" glass. The FlexRx Model NxS is a secure medication dispensing cabinet designed to hold narcotics or other medications. Other models serving other needs are also available.

To complement its storage products, PickPoint also offers FlexCount, a multi-vial high speed pill counter that can count 12 vials of 30 pills in under two minutes, and FlexCall, a software/scanner product that tracks a series of bar coded locations, to assist in medication/supply inventory and dispensing procedures.

"With the baby boomers getting older, there's been an explosion in the number of prescriptions written each year," Delaney says. "The number of pharmacists needed to fill those prescriptions hasn't kept up with the demand. Our idea was to bring efficiencies from other industries into the pharmaceutical industry to help organize, secure, and track medication. This allows for increased customer interaction, medication control, and the efficient use of pharmacy staff."

Photo: PickPoint founder and executive vice president Richard M. Lee demonstrates the company's equipment.

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