This is not a paid pharmacy endorsement!

We all know that the rules and regulations in pharmacy are cumbersome. Do you remember studying for your jurisprudence exams? What a nightmare!

Not only are there an endless number of rules, but they are ever changing. Just in the last few years the following headlines come to mind:

• “Pharmacists can now adapt with fewer limits in B.C.”
• “Pharmacists in Ontario can now assess for minor ailments.”
• “All community pharmacy managers must now complete the B.C. Community Manager Training Program.”

With all of these changes to deal with, how are pharmacy owners dealing with their second job? You know, the one where you try to keep up with the endless bureaucracy of business ownership.

Are you keeping up with the necessary changes to your policies and procedures? Are you communicating changes with your staff effectively? Do you have your finger on the pulse of new provincial and federal regulations?

You’d be forgiven (by your peers) if in the last few years, you’ve let some of these things slip. After all, many pharmacy owners are also the dispensary manager and frontline pharmacists, so it is, understandably, hard to keep up. Not to mention that pesky pandemic!

Unfortunately, the government organizations that make these regulations aren’t so forgiving. 

Which is why I am so excited by this service I’ve just come across!

Some background: I’ve been tasked with updating a few backend aspects of an independent pharmacy. Among my tasks, policy and procedure management is both the largest undertaking and, it would be fair to say, the driest. 

It quickly became apparent that I wouldn’t so much be updating the policies as needing to cross-reference the policies against all provincial and federal regulations, find what was missing, and add it.

So, there I sat, itching to get started with the website redesign, but stuck instead muddling through provincial regulations, trying to organize them into the relevant policies and procedures.

That is, until I came across this life-changing product called…drum roll please…PolicyPro!

Get this: For the cost of a typical malpractice suit deductible, you have access to 187 beautifully written boilerplate policies that you can then customize to your business.  These policies are crafted by a team of lawyers who specialize in employment law.

Think 187 policies is a bit of overkill? Just wait until you read through them, gasping left, right and centre as you realize how exposed your business has been!

Just getting access to the policies would be enough to sell me (and to be clear, I’m not the one with the cheque book here), but here are some other amazing benefits of the service:

• Your company is provided a hosting service to house your custom policies and distribute to your employees, complete with email notifications and quizzes for employees to take.
• The legal team is constantly updating the policies based on new and changing regulations. You simply update your custom policies to the newest version.
• There’s a regular newsletter specific to your province alerting you of key events and deadlines. 
• Finally, and perhaps most important, you get timely access to an expert for all your business specific queries.

Does your pharmacy need PolicyPro or similar product/service to be protected? Of course not. You’re a pharmacist. You’re organized. You’re diligent. But I’m here to tell you, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I have a clear set of steps to take in customizing these policies, and then a manageable role of ensuring updates are implemented and distributed moving forward. A stark contrast to the bureaucratic doom spiral I was originally dealing with!