Pharmacy U news

With social media firmly established as a viable online marketing opportunity, how can you use technology to promote your pharmacy and its products and services? First of all, you don’t have to leave it to the big boys with the big budgets.

We know that emotional decisions rarely end being up the right ones. When this happens, great leaders have the ability to zoom out, resist the urge to be swept away by the details and focus on the overall broader situation.

I am firm in my belief that community pharmacy in Canada is part of the solution to the challenges that Canadians are facing in accessing primary care. Crippling pharmacy through the imposition of fees and limiting patient choice of healthcare provider through PPNs is something I am prepared to invest my energy and time to prevent.

The beginning of a new year often has people looking hopeful at the possibility of what may be. Yet we know the vast majority of people who set New Year’s resolutions drop them within days or weeks of starting them. And they do this year after year.

In a repetitive pharmacy world that craves constant peaks of new-ness, those with the ability to grind will out-succeed those that make impulse decisions and routinely make big pharmacy system changes. Resisting temptation in a world of abundance can be your ally.

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.

I recognize that pharmacies are businesses, but pharmacists are frontline healthcare providers. The pharmacists, technicians and support staff who spend countless hours each day helping patients navigate their benefits plans don’t want to put their patients through the inconvenience of having to pay out-of-pocket and submitting.

I am so appreciative of all the comments (both private and public) that followed my blog from December 11th regarding the monthly user fee being imposed on community pharmacies by Express Scripts Canada (ESC).