| IT support for pharmacies is the work of keeping a community pharmacy able to dispense: the dispensary management software, the e-prescription connection behind it, the controlled drug register and the monitored fridge. Every one of them fails in view of a person standing at the counter. |
A community pharmacy in Ashburton opened on a Thursday at half past eight with nine people already waiting at the counter.
The dispensary software would not load. The retail till worked and the shelves were full, and no prescription could be dispensed for the next two hours.
People waiting on antibiotics or a blood pressure repeat do not wait two hours. Fourteen took their scripts elsewhere and three of them never came back.
The cause was one broadband connection with nothing behind it. A contractor had cut a fibre line two streets away.
The pharmacy had assumed its software vendor covered this. The vendor covered the software and the prescription link. Nobody had been asked to cover the connection into the building.
Two staff drove the waiting scripts to a pharmacy in Rakaia. The pharmacist rang the software vendor, then the carrier, then an IT company.
That Thursday had a price. So did the rest of the year, and nobody at the pharmacy had added it up.
The pharmacy below is illustrative and so are its hours. Four things were costing it money before anything broke, and none of them appeared on an invoice.
Staff hours went on paper dispensing and on the re-keying afterwards. A pharmacist spent about 25 minutes a day on the controlled drug register, including the weekly balance check, and another 40 minutes a week went on the fridge logger.
Then there is the repeat business. Three regulars who move to another pharmacy take their scripts with them for years, and few pharmacies ever count that loss.
Work those four out at your own wage rates and your own dispensing margin before you read anybody’s quote. It takes twenty minutes, and the answer will be specific to your pharmacy.
The stock loss came separately and came once. A fridge failed over Labour Weekend and a shelf of vaccines and insulin went in the bin. Price that one off your own stock list, because a pharmacy can work it out exactly.
You can test your own pharmacy this morning. Ask what happens to dispensing if the internet drops, then ask who gets the phone call overnight when the fridge goes out of range.
What Happens When a Pharmacy Dispensary System Goes Down?
Dispensing stops while the rest of the shop carries on, and the queue at the counter shows it inside a minute.
A community pharmacy runs two operations across one counter. The retail floor sells over-the-counter medicines and everything else on the shelves. The dispensary reads a prescription and then checks and labels it.
One network serves both. When it drops, card payments often keep working through the terminal’s own connection and the dispensary bench goes idle.
The queue does not split evenly. Retail customers clear in a minute and the dispensary side stops, so the waiting area fills with the people who came to collect a prescription.
IT for pharmacies starts at the counter, because customers notice a dispensary outage before anyone in the back office does, and they measure dispensary downtime in minutes.
This post covers the operating side of a community pharmacy. Our page on healthcare IT for clinical practices covers the medical centre, including the patient record, the National Health Index, secure clinical messaging, ACC claims and the Health Information Privacy Code.
How long can a pharmacy dispense without its dispensary system?
A pharmacy can dispense on paper for about an hour, and only for repeat items the pharmacist already knows.
Paper dispensing is legal and slow. Every item is labelled by hand and checked against a printout of the patient’s history, then entered into the system once it returns.
Owners underestimate the re-entry. Two hours of paper dispensing takes about three hours to put back into the system correctly.
Why does one internet connection stop a whole pharmacy?
One connection stops a whole pharmacy because the dispensary software and the prescription lookup both travel over it.
Older dispensary systems ran on a server in the back room and kept working when the line dropped. Current versions check the prescription against a national service before the label prints.
Ask your provider whether the dispensary can dispense offline, and for how long. The answer decides whether a second connection is worth pricing.
| What goes wrong | What the person at the counter sees | Who can fix it |
|---|---|---|
| The internet connection drops | The dispensary stops and the till carries on | Your IT provider, in minutes if a second connection is already in place |
| The dispensary software will not start | No prescription can be dispensed at all | The software vendor, once somebody has ruled out the server and the network |
| The prescription lookup times out | The pharmacist cannot pull the script behind the barcode | The national help desk for the service, your IT provider for the hardware |
| The label printer goes offline | Dispensing runs and nothing can be handed over | Your IT provider |
| The fridge goes out of range overnight | Nothing, until the stock is written off next morning | Nobody, unless a monitored sensor raised an alarm at the time |
| The claiming upload fails | Nothing that day, and a shortfall three weeks later | Your IT provider, plus a claim check by the pharmacy |
What Dispensary Software Do New Zealand Pharmacies Use?
New Zealand pharmacies run a dispensary management system, also sold as pharmacy management software or a PhMS, and everything else in the shop connects to it.
Toniq and RxOne are the two names most New Zealand community pharmacies run. Which one suits a pharmacy depends on script volume and on whether it belongs to a group.
The system does more than print labels. It holds the dispensing history, talks to the e-prescription service, produces the claim to Health New Zealand and, on one product now, keeps the drug register.
Everything around it is hardware the pharmacy owns. A dispensary bench depends on five things at once, and a support quote should name all five:
- The dispensary management system and the server or cloud tenancy it runs in
- The connection carrying the prescription lookup and the claim
- A barcode scanner at each dispensing position
- A label printer the system can still see on the network
- The vaccine fridge and whatever raises the alarm after hours
Take any one of the five away and the bench stops. A software quote covers the first one only.
What is the New Zealand e-Prescription Service?
The New Zealand e-Prescription Service, or NZePS, is a secure broker that carries a prescription from the prescriber’s system to the pharmacy’s.
The prescriber’s software prints a barcode and sends an encrypted copy of the prescription to the broker. The pharmacy scans the barcode and pulls that copy down, so nothing is transcribed by hand.
Health New Zealand’s getting started guide for NZePS states that every community pharmacy in the country has access to the broker. The barcode is called a SCID, short for SCript IDentifier, and it runs to 18 characters.
Older pharmacy documentation calls it a Ministry service, because the Ministry of Health built it before its functions moved to Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora in 2022. For Class B controlled drugs it removed the hand-written triplicate form, so a controlled drug script now depends on the barcode scanning cleanly.
What does a pharmacy need in the dispensary for NZePS?
A pharmacy needs a barcode scanner at the dispensing bench and a connection that stays up while a customer is standing there.
The guidance is direct about the scanner. A community pharmacy requires one, and typing an 18-character identifier by hand is the fallback.
Health New Zealand draws the support line for you. A software fault goes to your dispensary vendor and a service fault to its help desk, while a hardware fault goes to your own IT provider. Agree that split in advance.
Can a Pharmacy Keep Its Controlled Drug Register Electronically?
Yes, since March 2025, and only on a system Medsafe has approved.
Regulation 37 of the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 1977 sets the paper form. It requires a bound volume of consecutively numbered pages, one controlled drug to a page, alongside a Prescription Book recording every dispensing that includes one.
Both stay on the premises as a permanent record. Regulation 42 requires them kept secure for four years after the last entry and produced to any constable or authorised officer on request.
In March 2025 the Associate Minister of Health announced Medsafe’s approval of the first electronic controlled drug register for New Zealand pharmacies. Medsafe is the New Zealand Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Authority, and the approved product came from Toniq Limited.
A pharmacy on an approved system can retire the paper volume. Medsafe said at the time it was assessing other vendors and would approve more that met its standard.
What does an electronic drug register change for a pharmacy owner?
It moves a daily paper task into the dispensary system, and that record then needs a backup and a restore test.
On the hours above that is about 125 hours a year of pharmacist time back. Check it against your own register minutes. Pharmacist hours are harder to replace than a software licence.
Ask the vendor where the register is held and what the pharmacy takes with it if it changes system. Get that in writing before the paper volume goes into storage.
How Should a Pharmacy Monitor Its Vaccine Fridge?
A pharmacy should monitor its vaccine fridge with a logging device inside it and an alarm that reaches somebody who is not in the building. Cold chain monitoring overnight is the half most pharmacies get wrong.
Community pharmacies hold vaccines and insulin and have to keep them between +2°C and +8°C at all times. Health New Zealand’s cold chain standards for vaccines require two monitoring systems: a daily device recording the minimum and maximum reached, and a weekly one recording the temperature at least every ten minutes.
A pharmacy storing vaccines also has to hold Cold Chain Accreditation. Temperature monitoring documentation has to be kept for at least ten years, which puts a decade of fridge logs into the pharmacy’s records.
The weekly download leaves a gap. A fridge that fails on Friday evening is found on Monday morning, and the logger then tells you exactly when the stock was lost.
Ask who does that download in your pharmacy, and what happens to the cold chain when they are on annual leave.
Continuous cold chain monitoring with out-of-hours alerting closes that gap. A sensor raises the alarm while the temperature is still moving, which gives somebody time to move the stock.
The same argument runs in rest homes and retirement villages, where a medication fridge serves residents who cannot wait for a redelivery.
What counts as a cold chain breach?
A cold chain breach is any period where vaccines were stored outside +2°C to +8°C, however short.
The standards set out the response. Quarantine and label the stock, define the incident from the logger download, then work it through with the local immunisation coordinator.
All of that depends on the logger data being there and readable. A monitored sensor keeps its own history, so the investigation takes about an hour.
What Happens to Pharmacy Claiming When the Network Goes Down?
Claiming pauses on the day and turns up as a payment shortfall about three weeks later.
A funded community pharmacy claims against the Integrated Community Pharmacy Services Agreement, the ICPSA, which Health New Zealand holds with more than a thousand pharmacies. Claims are batched out of the dispensary system, so anything not entered does not get claimed.
A day of paper dispensing is still a day that has to be claimed. Errors get made when the day is re-keyed off paper, and an underclaim is not corrected unless somebody spots it.
Paper has not left the process either. A printed barcoded prescription for a Class B controlled drug stays in the pharmacy for four years carrying every dispensing date, and a certified true copy goes into the claim batch.
Nobody connects the shortfall to an outage three weeks earlier. Compare the week after any outage against a normal week and treat the gap as the cost of the day.
Should a Pharmacy Separate Its Retail and Dispensary Networks?
Yes, because the EFTPOS terminal and the dispensary otherwise share one network and one power supply.
The point of sale, the EFTPOS terminal and the stock file are retail problems, and our post on the shop floor and the till treats them that way. In a pharmacy they also share a switch and a battery with the dispensary bench.
An EFTPOS terminal carries its own compliance scope, and hanging it off the dispensary network pulls the dispensary into that scope for no gain.
Power is shared too. A short outage takes the dispensary server and the vaccine fridge down together and only one of the two sets off an alarm, so working out what needs a battery behind it is a twenty-minute job worth doing.
Splitting the two networks costs a morning and means a problem on the shop floor cannot reach the dispensary. The same problem turns up in veterinary practices once the consulting room and the retail counter share a switch.
How Much Does IT Support for Pharmacies Cost?
IT support for pharmacies is priced per site and per device, so what it costs depends on how many dispensing benches and fridges a pharmacy runs and on whether it needs a second connection.
Ask for four lines priced separately: the failover connection, the fridge monitoring, the licence for an approved electronic register, and the one-off project to install it and record who holds what. A single monthly figure hides which of the four you are buying.
Headcount moves the price very little. Sites and fridges move it most, because the connection and the sensors are bought for each one.
Set whatever a provider quotes against what you worked out at the start. If the quote comes in under what the current arrangement is costing in staff hours, the decision is easy, and if it does not, ask which of the four lines you can drop.
Does a pharmacy group pay three times as much?
No. The connection and the fridge sensors are bought for each site, while the register licence and the monitoring platform are bought once for the group.
A group also gets one thing a single pharmacy cannot buy. Staff can be moved between sites during an outage, so write down now which site covers which.
How Do You Stop a Pharmacy Dispensary Going Down?
Cut dispensary downtime by starting with the two failures a customer can see, the connection and the fridge, then work back from there.
- Ask your dispensary vendor in writing whether the system dispenses offline, and for how long.
- Put a second connection into the building on a different carrier, then test it by unplugging the first one during a slow hour.
- Fit a monitored fridge sensor that alarms after hours, and name the two people it calls.
- Put the dispensary server and the network gear on a battery, then check the battery still holds charge.
- Move the controlled drug register onto an approved electronic system, and confirm it is backed up somewhere the pharmacy controls.
- Write down who to ring for the software and who to ring for the connection, and put both on the dispensary wall.
None of that needs a new dispensary system. Most of what makes IT support for pharmacies work is bought once and checked twice a year.
The Ashburton pharmacy had a full dispensary and nine people waiting, and it could not dispense for two hours because of a fibre cut two streets away. Nobody at that pharmacy had ever asked what a second connection would cost.
Can Your Dispensary Still Dispense If the Line Drops?
Exodesk has supported South Island businesses since 1989 and works with clients across Canterbury, Otago and Southland from offices in Christchurch and Dunedin. Our healthcare team handles IT support for pharmacies from the dispensary bench outward, starting with a second connection behind the software.
We monitor the fridge overnight and keep the controlled drug register backed up, so a cut fibre down the road stops being a two-hour queue at your counter.
Contact us today to discuss how we can help your business or connect with us on LinkedIn to stay updated with more insights.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does IT support for pharmacies cover?
A community pharmacy runs a clinical system and a retail shop over one network, and community pharmacy IT support covers both halves. That means the dispensing software and its national prescription link, the drug register, the vaccine fridge, the label printers and the till. It also means knowing which supplier owns each type of failure before one happens.
Is IT for a pharmacy different from IT for a medical centre?
Yes. A medical centre works to an appointment book and a pharmacy works to a queue, so dispensary downtime at a pharmacy is visible to waiting customers within a minute.
What is a dispensary management system?
A dispensary management system, sometimes shortened to PhMS, is the software a pharmacy uses to take in a prescription, check it against the patient’s history, print the label and record what was handed over. Toniq and RxOne are the two systems most New Zealand community pharmacies use. The same system normally produces the claim to Health New Zealand, and on one product it now holds the controlled drug register as well.
Does a pharmacy need a second internet connection?
Yes, if the dispensary software checks a national service before it will print a label. A second connection on a different carrier, with automatic failover, removes the most common cause of a stopped dispensary and is priced for each site. Test whether you need one by unplugging the primary line during a slow hour and dispensing a single item.
Can a New Zealand pharmacy replace its paper controlled drug register?
Yes, on a system Medsafe has approved. Medsafe approved the first electronic controlled drug register for New Zealand pharmacies in March 2025, developed by Toniq Limited. Pharmacies on other dispensary systems have to wait until their own vendor is approved. Until then the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 1977 still require a bound paper volume kept on the premises.
How long does a pharmacy have to keep its controlled drug register?
Four years after the date of the last entry, under regulation 42 of the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 1977. The register has to be held in a place of security at the pharmacy and produced to any constable or authorised officer who asks to inspect it.
What temperature does a pharmacy vaccine fridge have to hold?
Vaccines must be held between +2°C and +8°C at all times, in storage and in transport. Health New Zealand’s cold chain standards require a pharmacy to run two monitoring systems, a daily minimum and maximum device and a weekly logger recording at least every ten minutes. Records of that monitoring have to be kept for at least ten years. A pharmacy storing vaccines must also hold Cold Chain Accreditation.
Who do you call when the prescription service connection fails?
Health New Zealand splits the answer by the type of fault. A software fault goes to your dispensary system vendor and a service fault goes to the NZePS help desk, while a hardware or connection fault goes to your IT support provider. Working out which one you have is usually the slowest part, so keep the numbers on the dispensary wall.
How much does IT support for pharmacies cost in New Zealand?
Pharmacy IT support is priced per site and per device, so any single figure quoted in an article will miss your pharmacy by a wide margin. Ask a provider to price the failover connection, the fridge monitoring, the approved register licence and the one-off installation as four separate lines. Then set that total against what paper dispensing, the paper register and the fridge logger already cost you in staff hours.
Should my dispensary software vendor be handling all of this?
No, and most of it was never theirs to handle. A dispensary software vendor supports the software and its link to the e-prescription service, and that is one of the five things a dispensary bench depends on. The network, the connection, the label printer and the vaccine fridge belong to the pharmacy and to whoever it asks to look after them.
Should the retail till be on the same network as the dispensary?
No, and separating the two is one of the cheapest improvements a pharmacy can make. Putting the retail point of sale on its own network segment means a problem on the shop floor cannot reach the dispensary bench.
Does Exodesk support pharmacies in Christchurch and Dunedin?
Yes. Exodesk provides IT support for pharmacies across Canterbury, Otago and Southland from offices in Christchurch and Dunedin, covering the dispensary network, the failover connection, cold chain monitoring and backup of the drug register. We have operated in the South Island since 1989 and work alongside your dispensary software vendor.
NEXT STEP
What happens at your counter if the dispensary stops this morning?
The dispensary software, the prescription connection, the controlled drug register and the vaccine fridge were each chosen at a different time, and most pharmacies have never tested what a cut line does to the queue. An IT assessment checks what stops, who can fix each part and what is monitored after hours, alongside the rest of your setup.
Or read more about our healthcare IT services.
