The 2025 flu season is starting earlier than many families expect, with pediatric cases rising quickly in several regions. For parents, this can feel overwhelming—especially with school, sports, holiday get togethers, and busy schedules increasing exposure to germs. The good news is that there are practical steps you can take now to help reduce your child’s risk and feel more prepared if illness does strike. Here’s what parents should know and do as flu season ramps up.

Implementing the right automation equipment behind the pharmacy counter helps pharmacy staff work quickly, efficiently, and accurately. Automating time-consuming tasks in the daily pharmacy workflow like counting and reconstitution ensures pharmacists and techs have more time to dedicate to the most important aspect of the business - taking care of patients. While automation equipment can make a big impact for pharmacies, it often does not come cheap.

Section 179 of the IRS Tax Code can help pharmacies save on their taxes when they invest in equipment like Fillmaster that helps improve their business. Section 179 gives independent pharmacy owners the ability to reinvest in their business, stay competitive, and save significantly at tax time. If you’ve been considering upgrading your equipment, doing so before year-end could pay off — literally.

Back in 1995, the idea for FLAVORx came when a man desperately searched for a way to make it easier for his daughter to take her much-needed seizure medication. Because of the medicine's terrible taste, the little girl struggled to take it, which led to multiple hospital visits and a stressed and worried family. The man and his pharmacist father worked to develop flavors that masked the taste of medicine, appealed to kids, and didn't affect the medication's efficacy.

30 years later, FLAVORx continues to help children around the country take their medicine. Plus much, much more. Our automation technology helps pharmacies fill prescriptions efficiently and safely, FLAVORx for Pets makes medication-time less stressful for pets and their owners, and our FillPure division ensures businesses of all kinds have access to clean, high-quality water. As we look back at how far we've come, we're excited for all that the next few decades hold!

So your pharmacy offers FLAVORx? Awesome! Providing a service that helps kids take their medicine is a huge deal for families. Once you have your new FLAVORx system up and running, the next step is making sure your community knows that your pharmacy flavors medicine. Having FLAVORx available won't do you or your patients any good if they don't know it's an option! Fortunately, raising awareness about your flavoring service is easy as can be. 

• Behind the pharmacy counter, time is in short supply. Pharmacists and pharmacy technicians are responsible for a seemingly endless list of tasks, leaving many stressed and burned out. Fortunately, the availability of pharmacy automation technology has made some of these tasks far more efficient in recent years.
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• Reconstituting liquid medications has traditionally between a time-consuming task as it requires pharmacy staff to stop what they're doing to fill the prescription when the patient arrives to pick it up.

To make filling liquid medications easier, FLAVORx and Fillmaster offer purified water dispensers that provide clean water on demand. Whether you fill 50 liquid medications a day or 5, FLAVORx and Fillmaster have a dispenser that will change the way you dispense liquid scripts.