How your pharmacy can prepare for success under DSCSA

Dispensers enter the final year of DSCSA

Dispensers have a unique set of challenges around DSCSA. Pharmacies, supermarkets, hospitals, and independent prescription drug dispensers must continue operating fast-paced, high-pressure public environments while adapting to the transformational changes posed by the new law ahead of its November 27, 2023 enforcement deadline.

Implementing full DSCSA serialization means upgrading systems for EPCIS and VRS, managing a massive increase in data, working with trading partners to ensure interoperable connections, training staff to investigate suspect products, and more. Here’s a quick rundown of dispensers’ requirements under DSCSA (and you can also check out our Dispensers page for more information).

Dispensers’ responsibilities

• Accept (and only accept) serialized products, meaning that incoming drugs must carry a unique product identifier, and that each product is traceable at the individual package level
• Receive or transfer data for any incoming product before or at the time of a transaction
• Maintain interoperable connections to securely transmit transaction data to trading partners
• Have processes in place to investigate suspect or illegitimate products
• Have processes in place to verify serialized products and process saleable returns
• Report illegitimate products to the FDA and immediate trading partners

What you can do

Get started. LSPedia’s mission is to make DSCSA compliance easy and stress-free for any pharmaceutical trading partner. Our team can work wonders with data, but we can’t turn back time — that’s why it’s so important to start early in the year. (And if you’ve already begun, to ensure that you’re on the right track!) Essentially, the closer you are to November 2023, the more pressure you’ll be under to get DSCSA done. Waiting until late in the year is a massive risk — one that affects all of your customers and trading partners.

Get resources. In addition to rolling out a DSCSA solution, you’ll need your team to have internalized what it means at the level of everyday business. Are you able to explain DSCSA to your workforce, and ensure there’s broad understanding of how your solutions work with your company’s existing processes and business needs? You may want to consider creating your own in-house DSCSA experts. LSPedia’s two-day DSCSA training sessions provides interactive, hands-on experience under the guidance of experts in FDA compliance, and limited class sizes enable the sessions to be customized to your organization’s needs.

Get a system that’s easy to use. A slowdown in receiving prescription drugs for your patients just isn’t an option. Implementing DSCSA shouldn’t create extra checks and labor before you can complete a transaction; rather, it should be part and parcel of your supply chain operations, and work seamlessly with your existing systems. For example, LSPedia’s Investigator for Exceptions Management is built with hundreds of GS1 data rules, serialization algorithms, and integration APIs to automatically detect the errors that can stall deliveries and guide the resolution process.

“WE CONSIDER LSPEDIA A PARTNER, RATHER THAN JUST A VENDOR. WE’RE GRATEFUL FOR THEIR HELP IN BECOMING DSCSA COMPLIANT.”

EDDIE GARCIA, DIRECTOR OF PHARMACY MERCHANDISING, SPARTANNASH

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Get in touch

With business just getting underway for 2023, now’s the perfect time to plan a meeting with LSPedia. Find out how your organization can become DSCSA compliant before the FDA’s deadline: contact us today or write to DSCSA@lspedia.com.

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