En-Vision America expands offerings

Since it launched its ScripTalk audible labels, En-Vision America has worked to make prescription labels more accessible for patients who might be visually impaired and thus require an audible label, larger print label or Braille label. And this year, the company is expanding its accessibility by offering label translations into 17 languages.

“We’ve always been in vision impairment and we’ve been doing that for more than 20 years. This is another offering for folks who don’t have English as their primary language,” En-Vision America VP and CTO David Raistrick told Drug Store News.

ScripTalk is at the center of the company’s ScripAbility suite of pharmacy solutions. Patients request a ScripTalk Station that is provided on loan by En-Vision America, and the participating pharmacy places an adhesive RFID tag onto the patient’s medication when filling it. When the bottle is placed on the Scrip-Talk Station, the label will be read aloud to the patient.

In addition to the dosage information that’s read aloud, patients are given an interactive voice response, or IVR, phone number that they call to have the educational leaflets that accompany their prescription read aloud. And if a patient has a Braille terminal attached to their computer display, the ScripTalk station plugs into a computer via USB and the label information will be sent to the Braille terminal. This is especially important for those who are deaf and blind.

“What we’re all about is giving label access to individuals [who] currently don’t have it,” Raistrick said. “We started with ScripTalk, and over the last three years we’re really getting traction in the marketplace. We’re excited about that.”

The traction that En-Vision America has built recently includes both national and regional chains. Walmart began offering ScripTalk in 2012, and in February 2016 Rite Aid made it possible for patients to request accessible labels at every location. More recently, Bartell Drugs began offering the talking labels, as did Texas-based H-E-B. Kim Janicke, H-E-B’s director of retail pharmacy operations, told DSN the company has begun offering ScripTalk at eight pharmacies, with potential to expand to more stores to meet demand.

“It’s worked pretty well on our end.… From a technical standpoint, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of challenges,” Janicke said.

Beyond ScripTalk, En-Vision America has two other offerings within ScripAbility — ScripView large print labels and BRL Braille labels. With ScripView, pharmacies can place a large-print booklet style label that can be read flat for patients who may not need a talking label, but who can’t read the pharmacy’s standard label. And with BRL, pharmacies can select the label information that they emboss in Braille.

“A really small percentage of individuals read Braille, but the ones [who] do absolutely love to have Braille as an option because it’s easy for them,” Raistrick said. “They can pick a prescription up and read it without a device, a magnifier or anything.”