EVERETT — A technology upgrade for Group Health pharmacies has caused waits over the past few weeks of an hour or more to get prescriptions filled, with some of the longest waits at its Everett and Lynnwood pharmacies.

Statewide, there’s a backlog of some 10,000 prescriptions waiting to be filled, said Dr. Paul Sherman, Group Health’s executive medical director of its group practice division.

The organization fills 6,000 to 8,000 prescriptions a day, he said. “When you have 6,000 or more new prescriptions coming in, you get the old ones out and build up the new ones,” Sherman said. There’s been delays in filling mail-order prescriptions, too.

On Friday, the wait times at the Group Health pharmacies in Snohomish County were about 30 minutes, but waits can be longer during high demand hours.

Group Health has 63,000 patients in Snohomish County and 625,000 members statewide.

Kaiser Permanente has sent more than a dozen people to help out with the problem, said Group Health spokesman Jackson Holtz. A deal for Kaiser Permanente to buy Group Health is being reviewed by the state’s insurance commissioner.

Sherman and other Group Health officials have gone to the organization’s pharmacies to do what they can to help. Patients were frustrated, he said, but were understanding when they learned what was causing the problem.

“I think an apology goes a long way,” Sherman said. “I and everyone here is so sorry this is occurring.”

Pharmacists have been working overtime and on weekends to try to ease the problem, he said. Group Health pharmacies in Lynnwood, Everett, Olympia and Capitol Hill in Seattle have had the biggest problems with wait times.

When the changeover first began about about three weeks ago, patients were waiting an hour or more. Wait times are tracked daily, Sherman said. “The majority of our pharmacy waits are still longer than I like, but generally running from 20 to 30 minutes.”

Sherman said he hopes wait times will be improved significantly. The Kaiser team will help ensure all problems have been identified in the computer system. “I can’t emphasize enough how hard the teams are working to fix the problem,” he said.

Group Health had been planning an upgrade to its pharmacy technology for a couple of years, replacing a system that’s several decades old.

Incoming prescriptions from Group Health clinics, pharmacies, phone lines and mail orders all come through a central computer processing system. Statewide, Group Health processes 4 million prescriptions a year.

Because of the system’s complexity, Group Health didn’t feel it could switch the technology in stages throughout its system, Sherman said.

For patients using mail-order prescription services, Sherman advised making a refill request with 14 days remaining of their medication. Those orders typically are being filled in five to seven business days, he said.

Patients should contact their clinic if they are down to only a few days of medication. “We’ll figure out how to get it filled on time,” he said.

Staff have been told what they can do to speed up prescriptions when orders have been placed and patients haven’t received them. In some cases couriers have been used to deliver medications to patients who are home bound.

Sherman said a small number of mail order prescriptions were lost during the technology switch, but Group Health has been able to find them and is filling the orders. “We should be nearing the end of that part of the problem,” he said.

Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486; salyer@heraldnet.com.