St. Ignatius Health Center, located in Montana, serves the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes an entity of Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes Tribal Health. They are dedicated to delivering high-quality health care grounded in their tribal values to every patient. This promise remained unwavering throughout the course of the pandemic. With Covid restrictions limiting the number of people able to safely be in the pharmacy, Jessi Cahoon, director of pharmacy services at Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes Tribal Health, had to bring about changes that would ensure everyone could easily get their prescriptions without having to physically come into the pharmacy while also combating transportation limitations widely experienced by patients across the reservation.
“There was such an overwhelmingly positive response to WellSpot amongst the Salish and Kootenai tribes that the tribal health center decided to place three additional kiosks across the reservation.”
At the peak of the pandemic, St. Ignatius Health Center implemented Parata WellSpot™ Prescription Pick-Up Locker to provide a safer and more convenient way for patients to pick up their prescriptions with minimal person-to-person contact. There was such an overwhelmingly positive response to WellSpot amongst the Salish and Kootenai tribes, that the tribal health center decided to place three additional kiosks across the reservation.
“This was the only successful initiative to come from Covid that yielded everlasting benefits,” said Cahoon. St. Ignatius Health Center was able to enhance customer service, increase publicity, and reduce the transportation boundary using their Parata WellSpots.
Today, CSKT Tribal Health helps coordinate transportation for the large population of patients who struggle to pick up their prescriptions. Before the WellSpot Prescription Pick-Up Lockers, some patients had to drive over 90 minutes to get to one of the two Tribal Health Pharmacy locations and now, with WellSpot, their prescriptions are readily available to them.
In addition, St. Ignatius Health Center was able to initiate a mobility service where technicians deliver prescriptions to those who cannot leave their homes. Jessi explained they’ve achieved maximum efficiency by having technicians deliver medications while they are out filling up the kiosks. Having people pick up prescriptions from a kiosk versus physically coming into the pharmacy frees up time for staff to dedicate to prescription delivery.
This increased both patient AND employee safety during the peak of the pandemic. The kiosks lowered the volume of patients in the lobby of the pharmacy and now Cahoon is considering using kiosks on-site to continue that trend and capitalize on the increased employee job satisfaction this change brought.
“WellSpot was perfect timing.” she says. CSKT Tribal Health today feels prepared should there be another wave of COVID-19 and better able to serve their community thanks to their WellSpot Prescription Pick-up Lockers.