Selecting the right software for your business

Over the years drug wholesalers have gotten in the business of selling pharmacy software in order to lock in pharmacy customers to exclusive wholesale deals. In many cases aligning with your wholesaler can lower drug costs in the short term but this makes changing wholesalers or pharmacy software vendors very expensive over the longer term.

Pharmacymanagementsoftware.com is committed to helping buyers find the right software program for their business. Rather than endorse a particular vendor we have tried to present a list of vendors that have products for this market. We have also included a list of questions that will help you find out more about particular vendors and their products so you make the right buying decision (you should also see Software Features page on this website). It is important to get to know your vendors and call some of their customers since many of these vendors are small companies and some of these vendors will go out of business. We have listed the major vendors by market served sector. Note all vendors are listed in alphabetical order. Some of the smaller vendors have not been listed since many serve small regional markets and may have as few as 15-50 customers.

Pharmacy software vendors and solutions by market segment

Vendor Retail & Independents Chain Hospital, HMO, and Institutional Long Term Care and Nursing Home Specialty Cerner Etreby X X Health Business Systems X X Healthcare Computer Corp. X X OPUS-ISM LLC X X X X X PerSe/NDC/McKesson X X X PDX Inc. X QS/1 X X X Rx30 X

Suggested buyer questions

• When was the company established?
• Is the business profitable?
• Who are the owners of the business?
• How many customers does the vendor have?
• What is the vendor's customer service policy?
• What services does the vendor provide – software and hardware maintenance, drug database updates, other?
• How many new customers has the vendor added in the last 12 months?
• Has the vendor had customers leave you in the past 12 months? Why did they leave?
• How many technical support representatives work at the company?
• How big is the vendor programming or development staff? – does the vendor outsource development?
• Which of the 2 major drug databases does the vendor use for drug interaction?
• Does the vendor outsource maintenance for software and hardware?
• What programs does the vendor offer to increase my revenue and or lower my pharmacy costs?
• Is the pharmacy software vendor a wholesaler and does that lock me into exclusive dealings with that wholesaler and does this make sense to me over the long term? Does this make switching to another wholesaler or pharmacy system vendor prohibitively expensive?
• How regularly does the vendor issue product updates?

To be listed on this web site please send your company name and url to: webmaster@pharmacymanagementsoftware.com