Watch DSN: Take a tour through Thrifty White Pharmacy's central fill facility

Drug Store News visited Thrifty White in Fargo, N.D., and witnessed the full range of innovations driving excellent patient care, including its expansive, technology-driven 45,000 sq. ft. central fill facility. By shifting dispensing workload to this location, local pharmacy teams are freed up to focus on clinical services and deeper engagement with patients.

“A lot of the foundation we’ve built over the years has been focused on leveraging technology to enable us to get beyond pharmacy,” said Jeremy Faulks, vice president of pharmacy operations.

“We’re a complex pharmacy operation managing community, long-term care and specialty pharmacy patients in pharmacies across six states. We maintain our own dispensing system and IT department, allowing us to streamline this operation and leverage technology to drive efficiencies, which simplify the fulfillment work of the local pharmacies. This enables Thrifty White to offer more clinical services and gives pharmacists more time to engage with patients,” Faulks said.

Faulks noted that with central fill taking on some of the dispensing workload, pharmacists have more time to focus on clinical care—like identifying and closing vaccination gaps, offering point-of-care testing and delivering MTM services.