How to Prepare Your Pharmacy for Kroll Automation
Getting Kroll automation live in 1–2 weeks is realistic — but only if your pharmacy is ready before the vendor shows up. This guide covers what to check, what to clean up, and what to decide before your go-live date.
1. Staff readiness
Automation changes the workflow, not the responsibility. Before you go live:
- Decide who owns the exception queue. Someone needs to review flagged prescriptions — ambiguous DINs, unrecognized prescribers, documents AutoRx routes to human review. Designate this role before day one.
- Set expectations with your team. Staff who currently do data entry will shift to reviewing and approving, not typing. Frame this as a quality control upgrade, not a replacement.
- Identify your power user. One person on your team should understand the dashboard well enough to train others and answer questions. This is usually a senior technician or the dispensary manager.
2. Kroll version compatibility
AutoRx integrates with Kroll directly — not through screen-scraping — so version compatibility matters.
- Confirm your Kroll version with your vendor before signing. Most active Kroll installations are compatible.
- If you have a pending Kroll upgrade, complete it before go-live or schedule both together.
- Ask your IT team or Telus Health contact whether your Kroll instance is hosted locally or in the cloud. This affects the agent installation step.
3. Document volume assessment
Know your numbers before configuring the system. Automation is most impactful when volume is high and predictable.
| What to measure | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Average daily inbound faxes | Baseline for expected throughput |
| Peak hour / day of week | Helps identify when exceptions will pile up |
| Percentage of digital vs. fax prescriptions | Determines which intake channels to connect first |
| Average number of Rx lines per fax | Multi-Rx faxes are processed as separate writes; higher line counts increase daily volume |
Your vendor should walk through these numbers with you. If they don’t ask, that’s a red flag.
4. Workflow mapping
Before go-live, walk through your current manual workflow end to end and identify where automation inserts.
Fax intake:
- Fax arrives → who checks it today?
- Who opens the queue in Kroll after automation is live?
- Where do exception faxes go — paper tray, digital folder, or directly to the queue?
Prescription review:
- What does a normal review look like? (Confirm DIN, strength, sig, prescriber)
- What makes you send a prescription back or call the clinic?
- Which of those scenarios should AutoRx catch automatically vs. escalate to your team?
Map these answers before the vendor configures your rules. The configuration reflects your workflow — not a default template.
5. Go-live checklist
Work through this before your launch date:
- Kroll version confirmed and compatible
- Agent installed and connected to your Kroll environment
- Fax intake channel connected (fax-to-cloud provider or direct)
- Exception queue role assigned to a team member
- Staff walkthrough of dashboard completed
- Test batch of 10–20 real prescriptions run in review mode (no live writes yet)
- First live writes supervised with a staff member watching the queue
- Webhook endpoint configured if you use ops tooling
- PHIPA/PIPEDA documentation reviewed (DPA signed if required)
After go-live
The first week is calibration. Expect a slightly higher exception rate as the system learns your formulary edge cases. Review flagged prescriptions quickly — your feedback during week one shapes the system’s confidence thresholds.
Most pharmacies reach steady state (exception rate below 5%) within 5–10 business days.
Questions before you get started? Talk to the AutoRx team — we walk through readiness on every onboarding call.