- 12/19/2023
One job of the pharmacy leader is to moderate the range of personalities on the team. Once the right people are involved, everyone’s opinion is valid and part of the process of arriving at the best decisions, but only if everyone is given an opportunity to speak.
- 12/12/2023
Spend time building meaningful patient relationships instead of focusing on the empty calories of transactions. Transactions pay off once, while relationships pay off repeatedly. Even if each individual payoff is smaller than each individual transaction, the sum of all the relationships over their much longer lifespan will come out further ahead.
- 12/5/2023
In the pharmacy, there are countless ways of being a set-up person. For example, you can leave a proper note, count out the meds in anticipation of the door-crasher tomorrow morning, allow staff to make their own schedule within set parameters, give people freedom to make workflow decisions, do the dishes from the compounding sink, check your fair share of blister packs or organize the paperwork for tomorrow’s appointments.
- 11/28/2023
Pharmacy is like a snow storm. During a heavy storm, we cannot keep up with the falling snow even with constant shovelling. We end up going about our lives, then dealing with the damage when the storm is over. The act of shovelling is put on hold until after the storm is over.
- 11/21/2023
For the pharmacy world struggling with back orders, recalls and mixed-up orders, owing is a part of the job. But owings – or debt – for a pharmacist are analogous to the problem of lost luggage.
- 11/14/2023
With a very sparse number of pharmacy staff in the neighbourhood to choose from, we now often select workers without actual pharmacy experience. This means that leaders need to have an even keener eye for detecting the cross-over skills hidden in the stories of those we are interviewing.
- 11/7/2023
By their scientific method, scientists’ actions demonstrate that they do not know the true answer but have ideas as to what it could be. Scientists resist the urge to form irreversible public opinions. Instead, they let the process show them the way, then steer in that direction in full willingness to pivot as necessary.
- 10/31/2023
Pharmacy does not come with a user guide. Pharmacy leaders must hear what is going on in the game and help the players find a solution that fits within the rulebook. To do this, we do not necessarily need to invent the answer ourselves. Instead, we must understand the problems, leave emotion aside and generate ideas from other people.
- 10/17/2023
Pharmacy is a little like jumping out of an airplane. It takes bravery, practice, training and most of all, a parachute. While the primary parachute is obvious, there is another essential need before jumping out of the plane: the back-up chute.
- 10/16/2023
Gone are the days of a "druggist" using leeches or being the only druggist in town. Gone are the product-driven experts solely paid for dispensing. Pharmacists have stretched the limits of their horizons before us and now it is our turn. It’s time to prescribe!
- 10/10/2023
Some bets in life are simple once you wrap your mind around them. For years, my wife and I resisted paying someone to cut our lawn. Despite the insane schedule that comes with being connected to a few pharmacies, triathlon training and everything that two children brought our way, I was fixated on the cost of paying someone.
- 9/28/2023
Like many pharmacy manager-owners, I have conducted a few interviews in my time. Some were highly collaborative and resulted in all-stars still working strongly with us today. Other résumés turned into napkins or scrap paper.
