Reliable IT is a must in pharmaceutical distribution
Case Pharmac Finland Oy
Case Pharmac Finland Oy
A significant number of Finnish pharmacies that offer medicine dose dispensing use Pharmac’s “Oma-annos” dosing service. Through pharmacies, medicine dose delivery service is available to consumers, home care and nursing homes.
– For us, IT is a critical factor in keeping us competitive and even bringing us competitive advantage. By developing our services, we can offer our customers additional services that others do not have. We appreciate NerdyNet’s proactivity in all new IT related developments, as IT is an integral part of exploiting new opportunities, says Sami Heikkilä, Administrative Manager of Pharmac Finland Oy.
The collaboration between Pharmac and NerdyNet began with upgrading servers in need of modernization to provide the necessary server capacity for digitizing services. However, getting the hardware was not sufficient as it was essential to design how to integrate different systems to work seamlessly.
– We attempt to do everything IT related with NerdyNet. They know how our systems work and that saves us time. If we have a need that they cannot serve, they look for the right resource from their professional network. This way, we don’t have to spend time and effort figuring it out, Sami continues.
– Pharmac has made a risk analysis for business critical systems and identified what is needed to minimize the potential damage caused by a malfunction. It’s nice to work with a customer who understands the importance of the matter, says Mika Hakkarainen, System Manager at NerdyNet Oy.
System development work is ongoing to further reduce the down time and recovery time. For example, RPO (Recovery Point Objective) and RTO (Recovery Time Objective) highlighted in the risk analysis have now been specified.
Pharmac’s production operates in two clean rooms, so if any disruption occurs in one, the production can continue in another room. Some tasks can be performed manually, but if the dosing machines do not work, production will be interrupted.
– People need their medication as prescribed by their doctor. We have improved fault tolerance to ensure production because a system down time of 24 hours for example would be catastrophic. Fortunately, this has never happened, says Sami.
NerdyNet is monitoring the systems and managing backups. The fault tolerant server solution and its protection are implemented as a continuous service. The current and needed capacity are reported, including the system load and available disk space.
– NerdyNet has brought professionalism to our IT management. IT plays a big role in corporate image and operations – securing the business critical environment is also about reputation management, Sami concludes.
Pharmac Finland Oy specialize in automated medicine dose dispensing, offering dose distribution service to all pharmacies in Finland. Through pharmacies, medicine dose delivery service is available to consumers, home care and nursing homes. The company was established in 2008 and employs approximately 50 pharmaceutical professionals.
