Every business owner knows how important it is to maintain costs and control losses. In the Pharmacy and HME business, we add a layer of patient safety into the formula. The CPR+ Equipment Manager helps you to manage cost, know where your equipment is located, and know that it is clean, safe and ready for your patients.

If you're a fan of Angela's Tech Corner, you may remember her tip regarding the new "Managers" drop-down on the Main Menu Bar of CPR+v8.2. You can access the Equipment Manager from there or, you can do it the old-fashioned way, and from the Main Menu, select Inventory (6) > Equipment Manager (9).

Like all your favorite managers, the top of the Equipment Manager window has a number of fields available to filter by so that you can view only the items that answer your question. For example, your question might be, "Where are all my Oxygen Concentrators?" Select the Item Radio Button, select oxygen concentrator from the drop-down, and click the Apply Filter button. Voila! There's my concentrators.

Meanwhile, Stuart, my delivery driver, is telling me that we need to buy more concentrators. So, that's my next question: "How many do I have available - which ones are ready to send out the door today?" Click the Status column header to sort by Status. In my example data, I have three items available. In my make-believe HME business, three's a plenty. In the real world, you might jump online and buy ten more. The point is, you know what you've got at a glance and can base your purchase decision on accurate information.

What else? There's Jeff, my warehouse employee, he's run out of things to do... Hmmm. I can run the filter again, but this time, I'll click the All Items Radio Button and check the PM Due box. I'll enter this month's dates in the From and To fields. What do you know! I see 42 items that need maintenance! Looks like we can rename Tuesday "Preventative Maintenance Day". Better yet, I'll show Jeff how to use the Equipment Manager so he can watch for items that need maintenance without me bugging him. I just empowered my staff and ensured patient safety.

Managing equipment is a vital part of your business - and there's much more to cover than can fit in one article. Come to this year's Annual CPR+ User Conference and attend the Equipment Management class. You will learn the best way to set up equipment in your Inventory, see more uses for the Equipment Manager, learn about depreciation setup and reporting, and we'll even cover Rental Item Reports.

Hope to see you in Albuquerque.

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"You've gotta ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky?" We certainly hope so, because we're ready to give away some great prizes to celebrate our 100th issue.

Here's the plan: In the next three issues of this newsletter, (Issues 97, 98, and 99) we will ask a question (or two) related to the Weekly Infusion. All the answers can be found in the first 95 issues.

The first questions will appear in next week's issue. You'll have three weeks to gather the questions and find the answers. Then, on October 13th, when Issue 99 is published, we will begin accepting entries.

If there are multiple correct entries, a winner for each prize will be selected in a random drawing. Winners will be announced in the 100th Issue and if attending, prizes will be awarded at the 6th Annual CPR+ User Conference in Albuquerque.

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