Pharmacy U news

At the end of January, I got a new boss. Skip Bourdo was named as incoming CEO of Neighbourly Pharmacy. I had a great relationship with the previous CEO, Chris Gardner. Chris made my transition to an employee easy and allowed me the freedom to work on projects that I am passionate about. As soon as the press release went out about a new CEO, I started getting calls asking if I was concerned about an American coming in.

There seems no reprieve to the pharmacist’s daily battles, let alone carrying the weight of nurturing a high-volume prescription count, staff that need plenty of attention and keeping an eye on a business that depends on a ton of moving parts.

While a pharmacist is counselling a patient in-person, would it be appropriate for them to stop to answer the phone? Would we expect this of a surgeon or a plumber? Then why do we have to stop what we are doing mid-thought to answer the phone in the first two or three rings for the sake of good customer service?

Pharmacists monitor medication safety and efficacy within the drug delivery system. I very much like this definition, but I also understand the need to adjust it as we move forward. We don’t just dispense, we don’t just check for allergies and drug interactions, we aren’t just the medication experts. We are something larger than that which blends these elements (and many others) together for the benefit of the people we serve.

The good news is that most, if not all, of these mistakes are easily avoidable or – if you are currently making them – fixable. Yet remember: when you are thinking of selling your pharmacy, time is not your friend when it comes to getting your books in order.

Pharmacists are doing more today than ever before. What are the things you are most excited about when it comes to pharmacy being the hope of healthcare? You can be excited about it, even if you are not currently doing it. All over the world we see our colleagues doing some fantastic things for patient care. What are some of those things that you believe would be an absolute game changer?

Some urgent moments of pharmacy involve getting prescriptions filled, managing wait times and dealing with due dates like order cut-off times, answering phones and patient line-ups. While this urgent work needs to be done, it does not offer much by way of making the pharmacy operate more efficiently or being ready for the future.

In the last month I have attended two pharmacy conferences. I was shocked by the number of people who approached me to mention they read everything I blog about here and on my LinkedIn page.