Patent ID: 7734478

Claim:
A method of managing drug prescription orders within a network of pharmacy resources of a corporate entity, the method comprising: identifying, at a computing device of an information processing system connecting the network of pharmacy resources of the corporate entity, a drug type; determining, at the computing device, a demand for the drug type, including determining a total number of prescription orders to be filled corresponding to the drug type in the network of pharmacy resources of the corporate entity; determining, at the computing device, a capacity of a designated set of pharmacy resources in the network to process prescription orders corresponding to the drug type, wherein: the designated set is assigned to process prescription orders associated with the drug type; processing each prescription order associated with the drug type includes executing physical preparation and executing information processing of each prescription order associated with the drug type; executing physical preparation of each prescription order associated with the drug type includes packaging a dosage of the drug type and printing a label corresponding to each prescription order associated with the drug type; executing information processing of each prescription order associated with the drug type includes authenticating each prescription order, validating third party provider information, collecting payment information, and referencing drug information associated with the drug type; and at least one pharmacy resource in the network is enabled to independently process prescription orders including executing both the physical preparation and the information processing; determining, at the computing device, when the demand for the drug type exceeds the capacity of the designated set of pharmacy resources in the network to process prescription orders corresponding to the drug type, and assigning, by the computing device, an additional pharmacy resource to the designated set; determining, at the computing device, when the capacity of the designated set of pharmacy resources in the network to process prescription orders corresponding to the drug type exceeds the demand for the drug type, and deactivating, by the computing device, one pharmacy resource of the designated set from processing prescription orders corresponding to the drug type; and sending, via the information processing system to a first pharmacy resource in the designated set of pharmacy resources of the corporate entity in the network, at least a portion of a first prescription order corresponding to the drug type for processing.