Written and published by Ross Snyder – Foundation Systems, Inc – 801-785-7720 – help.fsi.us.com
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Before we get started, if you would like someone else in your organization to receive The FSI 411 emails and/or update note reminders, please send me an email with their name and email address.
When should you apply your updates?
If you are a manual person, a little more hands-on, the FSI semi-monthly updates are available the first Wednesday after the 1st of every month and the first Wednesday after the 15th of every month. If the 1st or the 15th fall on a Wednesday, the update is available that day.
If you like to be automated, let the update auto-apply so you can focus on other important aspects of your pharmacy, the update can be configured to auto-apply. For this to happen, you would need to contact FSI support (801) 785-7720.
Why should you apply your updates?
Updates keep your drug database up to date with any necessary drug changes. Currently, FSI receives quarterly updates from Medi-Span which keep your drug-to-drug interaction, allergy, and drug crosscheck databases up to date. Starting July 1, 2021, the update structure will be changing. On a semi-monthly basis, FSI is sending out any drug changes needed sooner than quarterly. These drug updates would take care of discontinued drugs or manufacturers and any other drug changes necessary before the quarterly update. The semi-monthly update also contains the current AWP for your drug file.
If you fall behind on updates too far your drug databases will flag you constantly they are expired. This is the FSI update dog barking at you every time you do something with that drug, “Bark! Do your updates! Bark!”. If you fall too far behind, these clinical databases will be inactivated. Per FSI’s contract with Medi-Span, we have to do this. Your drug databases being up to date are a large part of how you safely dispense medication to your patients.
Software updates are included in the semi-monthly updates. Software updates could be any of the following:
* Local, State, and Federal legal updates pertaining to your pharmacy. This could be CURES/PMP reporting updates, schedule medication law updates, etc…
* Software changes upgrading your software adding features to keep your FSI software up to date with the competition.
* Something every software faces are bugs. So naturally, bug fixes are in the semi-monthly update.
Who should apply your updates?
Updates can be automated which could eliminate forgetting to run updates and falling behind. If you or your staff (Pharmacy or I.T. Group) decide to manually process the updates, I personally recommend someone who works with the software. When an update is applied, there are update notes displayed in the process. The notes can be read and/or printed. I recommend reading the notes so you know what changes have been made with your software, and know-how this can affect you, your staff, and overall, your pharmacy.
FSI Semi-Monthly Update Notes
I am going to make an effort to publish the semi-monthly update notes on the FSI Help website. I will send an email with a link to the notes. This email can serve as a reminder the update was either ran or needs to run but allows you access to read any software changes (pharmacy or point of sale). Update notes can be viewed and printed after updates are applied. From the main menu, press ‘U’, then select the update desired to view (and print if wanted).
How to “LOAD” and “INSTALL” an update
There are two ways this can happen: 1) You can manually. . . or 2) have FSI’s amazing tech support team set your system up to apply automatically. We all know time is money… Why not eliminate one more thing you have to spend time doing and why worry about the downtime?
1) Manual: If you are choosing to manually load/install, you need to pay attention to the calendar. Create a calendar item to alert you, write it down on a physical calendar, or just remember (like you have nothing else to worry about) and apply the update every first Wednesday after the 1st and 15th of each month, or if the 1st and 15th land on a Wednesday. To install manually, you will need to make sure you have a current backup of your data. Then, from the main menu of the pharmacy system, press Shift-F3 and select number 1 to “LOAD” the update. This process can be done any time after the update is available and doesn’t require everyone to be hands off the system, the update file is only being downloaded from FSI.
Once the update is downloaded, and before installing the update, you should run a backup of your data. Once your backup is complete, everybody accessing your FSI data should be hands-off. Once you have achieved this, from the main pharmacy menu, press Shift-F5 and select option 1, “INSTALL UPDATE”. Follow the prompts on the screen and let the update complete. Once the update is complete, you will want to answer the reboot option with “YES”. POOF! Just like that, you’re done!
2) Automated: Contact the FSI support office at (801) 785-7720, ask the amazing technician answering the phone about configuring your semi-monthly updates to run automatically. The technician should be making sure your backups are consistently running without error whether backups are manual or automatic. If your backups are automated, they should be happening before the automated update process.
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