“I Don’t Want to Spend Time Training”
This article is for Indian Health Service pharmacy directors only.
This is one of the most common comments pharmacy directors share with me, both for training new hires and relief pharmacists. A way to save you time to train is to hire slowly for the right hire and screen for pharmacists who have as many translatable skills as possible. If you have a relief pharmacist coming in, select someone with IHS experience. At the same time, there will always be new procedures and strategic direction unique only to your facility.
Training is an area that is easy to shortcut. The most common excuses are: “I don’t have time”, “Things are always changing around here; just ask other pharmacists how they will handle this.”
Unfortunately, shortcuts can lead to many issues down the road even if they are not obvious on the surface. Also, if your new hire is being trained by more than one person, one person’s approach may be different than another person’s understanding of the approach. When training comes from top down, it reduces the chance of misinterpretations.
When you have a set system that everyone follows, it protects the patients also. It helps with patient safety when your pharmacists consistently review charts in a certain manner; it also helps with customer service that a patient receives a certain standard of care. Have you ever experienced a patient telling you that another pharmacist did something for them but doesn’t understand why are you not doing it too (when “doing it” may not be in the best interest of the patient)?
Automate your training. Have your pharmacy staff write down for a week some of the most common things that they do in the pharmacy. For example, refill procedure. Perhaps you receive the refills, the chart is pulled (whether paper or electronically), the recent visit notes & labs are reviewed, and the medications are processed based on whether or not the date of refill is reasonable. How do you account for dates when someone loses their medication? What if it’s a pain medication? For new meds, how do you handle a non-formulary request? Create a standard that can be easily referenced in a Frequently Asked Questions link on your intranet.
Create a manual or visual/audio training for the most frequently used procedures in the pharmacy. Use tools like Camtasia screen capture or audio recorded training. You may even explore video training with a Flip Mino Camcorder, capturing procedures around the pharmacy.
Automate EHR or computer system training that covers nuances & different menus unique to your facility. Create training that captures each screen view as you walk the trainee thru step by step through each menu, from reviewing the chart notes &labs to processing the prescription. You only have to do it once, and if any of your pharmacy staff have questions about it, they can refer to it right away.
Resistance #1: It takes too much time. Besides, it is easier for a pharmacist to learn when they are walked step-by-step by someone regarding how we do things. It’s easy to slip into doing this. But remember, the more this is an accepted culture at your pharmacy, the more confusion about what is truly the procedure set by management compared to someone’s interpretation of the procedure. Creating training/systems will save you time in the long run. Taking 1 hr out of your week (or even month) to create one training system will save you 1 hr each new hire.
Resistance #2: I don’t like to learn new technology. You may not have heard of Camtasia Studio or Flip Mino Camcorder before. Camtasia Studio is a screen capture tool that allows you to take video shots of each screen you are training on, along with recording your voice walking someone step-by-step through a procedure. You can get Camtasia Studio free download to try it out. The video can be created in basic .AVI format, or customized for other platforms, like the iPod, iTunes, QuickTime, RealMedia, or audio-only MP3, so it’s easily accessible. Flip Mino Camcorder is a portable, high quality video recorder that you can easily use to record video training and share easily with staff.
Resistance #3: I am overwhelmed. You may start to get overwhelmed by the enormous amount of training that needs to be systematized. Don’t worry—tackle the ones that are most routine or rarely change first. Or perhaps the ones that end up taking the most time out of management’s day to train someone for the first time. You as management do not need to create the systems yourself; you can appoint a project leader to do this—someone who will have meetings with you beforehand to discuss the actual procedure you plan on systematizing, that person will create the training/system, and you will review the completed work.
How frequently should I create systems? This depends on how frequently you are hiring. If you hire once every 3 years, it may not be as high on your priority list (although still important, so that everyone on your staff is on the same page with standards).
Training for pharmacists who have been staff for a long time: Create a system every week that each pharmacist will watch & implement for the week.
“I really don’t have time. I barely have time to keep up with day-to-day prescriptions.”
If you catch yourself saying this, chances are that you are measuring time by the success of operating from day to day. Measure your success by your patient & employee satisfaction. If it’s not where you want it to be, try things that can improve patient & employee satisfaction. Creating systems & training is one of them. If you do the same thing you’ve always done, chances are that you will get the same results you’ve always gotten. The more you are able to step aside from being tied to how you currently operate (unless there really is little room for improvement), the more your pharmacy will grow in a way that your patients & pharmacy staff will appreciate the pharmacy.
How have you saved time with training at your pharmacy? Comment below to share your ideas!
