SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — H.D. Smith was named as a finalist for the Healthcare Distribution Management Association’s (HDMA) Distribution Management Award for its mobile controlled substance ordering system (CSOS).

The pharmaceutical distributor said Tuesday that the mobile CSOS is the first of its kind offered by a U.S. wholesaler and is set to be rolled out to customers nationwide this week.

The CSOS functionality enables pharmacists to seamlessly integrate their controlled substance ordering into the mobile device environment while ensuring security, according to H.D. Smith. To create the new system, the wholesaler partnered with longtime vendor Legisym to add a digital certificate through its Remote Certificate Store.

“H.D. Smith is continually striving to create value for pharmacists across the nation, and nothing is changing more quickly for our customers than the way they use mobile technology to do business,” Dale Smith, chief executive officer of H.D. Smith, said in a statement. “We created this piece of our Member Portal to address an unmet marketplace need – to create a way for pharmacists who favor iPads to place orders for controlled substances while improving CSOS use and dependability.”

The new technology operates much like a traditional CSOS e-certificate, except that the Remote Certificate Store will allow the customer to access CSOS credentialing via the cloud instead of a hard drive, according to H.D. Smith. The system also incorporates complete order history, which will store full details about every order placed for two years, lessening the burden of data storage for pharmacists.

“With this new technology, H.D. Smith customers will be able to use an iPad, or any mobile device, in any location and engage the Remote Certificate Store design, with any browser, to sign CSOS orders — plus eliminates the worry of losing access to its records. This will move all types of orders with H.D. Smith, CII or otherwise, into the modern age of mobile device ordering,” Smith added. “We hope that this will improve efficiency for the pharmacies we serve, and since time is money, we are helping our customers save money in the long run. This also helps maximize patient outcomes by getting vitally needed and powerful medicine where it needs to be, when it needs to be there.”

H.D. Smith said its Member Portal online ordering platform was expanded to meet the needs of a growing market using web browsers other than Internet Explorer. In addition, the company said, more consumers are buying tablets over PCs or laptops, so compatibility with mobile devices is becoming more important.

“H.D. Smith’s new eCertificate now acts as a backup to the original signing certificate a pharmacist downloaded from the DEA,” explained David Guzman, the wholesaler’s chief information officer. “No longer will our customers need to go back to the DEA for reissuing, downloading and updating their CSOS program.”

Joseph Cocchiara, pharmacist-owner of 58th Street Pharmacy Inc., d.b.a. Town Drug and Surgical, in New York, is one of H.D. Smith’s customers who tested ordering on an iPad. After the new setup passed the DEA Drummond Group CSOS Audit, which validated use of the cloud-based digital certificate, the team set up a test environment for Cocchiara to place orders.

“Before this test, I could only order from one computer in the pharmacy, and everyone in the pharmacy has access to use that computer,” stated Cocchiara. “For me, accessing the digital certificate on my iPad will make the process much more secure, and if I’m at home and forgot to order something, I can place that order any time. It gives pharmacists with a digital certificate a lot more flexibility. This will change the face of pharmacy as we know it.”