Pharmacy Directors- Biggest Management Challenges?
Share your biggest management challenges being a pharmacy manager by commenting on this blog or click here. I will answer the most commonly asked questions here. Also, stay tuned for a multi-speaker pharmacist telesummit event coming in June that will address your main management challenges.
One of the most common challenges mentioned by pharmacists about their management is managing expectations and communicating expectations clearly.
One way to communicate expectations clearly is to conduct set performance reviews. These performance reviews include the pharmacist rating him/herself on measurable factors, in addition to you as the pharmacy management evaluating the pharmacist. Allow the pharmacist to participate in the creation of some of those measurable factors as well.
Stay tuned! I will write on other ways to communicate expectations effectively in another blog article.
“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.” Read more
How Will The Healthcare Reform Affect Pharmacy Practice?
(Updated 3/30/10)
There has been a lot of buzz & speculation about how the healthcare reform will impact pharmacy practice. Concrete understanding of its true impact will be made more clear as it moves forward into implementation.
Many pharmacists feel that the healthcare reform is likely to positively impact pharmacy practice because of its support of pharmacy practice and its importance in the healthcare system.
Pharmacy-related aspects of the passed bill include a loan-forgiveness program & grants for pharmacist-provided medication therapy management (MTM) services. The bill scales back cuts to Medicaid pharmacy reimbursement rates under the average manufacturer price, and exempts pharmacies from durable medical equipment accreditation requirements.
Increased access to healthcare as a result of the reform is expected to increase healthcare demand, and some say this is good for pharmacists. However, more prescriptions filled does not mean more money generated for pharmacies. For example, with Medicare, you must fill a higher volume of prescriptions to generate the same amount of profit as you may when a patient is on insurance.
As the healthcare reform moves forward and plays itself out in the upcoming years, it is important for pharmacists to continue to educate our legislators on what pharmacists do. The impression we make to our legislators can result in their support or lack of support about what pharmacists do. Some legislators do not see the level of care that pharmacists can provide to them in the pharmacies they go to. This can happen especially in pharmacies that are understaffed. In those pharmacies, pharmacists may not be able to give each patient the attention they’d like.
How do you think the healthcare reform will affect pharmacy? What are your biggest questions about how it can impact pharmacy? I know some of you are concerned about whether pharmacist salaries will be affected; others wonder how it will affect the pharmaceutical industry or managed care pharmacies. Share your questions below.
How can you contribute to educate the public about our profession & encourage lawmakers to encourage pharmacy practice the way we’d like to practice? Check out APhA’s website on steps to take to make legislators aware of what we do. Share your story and move legislators. Comment below with your opinion on how the healthcare reform will impact pharmacists and their practice.
Is it Aptitude or Attitude that Counts in an Interview?
Aptitude gets you in the door. Your resume is the place to show off your aptitude. Are you a pharmacist with relevant experience for the role that they are looking for? Do you appear to consistently be an overachiever who is loyal (and likely to be a good investment for the company, rather than a job hopper?)
During the interview, you will clarify your aptitude so that a potential pharmacy employer feels confident about your capabilities related to the job. Your employer is also looking for the right attitude.
I have seen pharmacists who may have been borderline in consideration when it comes to experience, but they were able to stand out from others in a resume and sell themselves so well in an interview that they get the job. The pharmacy director or hiring manager appreciates the attitude and enthusiasm of the pharmacist, finds it to be a good fit, and wants to offer him/her the job. That is how important crafting your resume to stand out & acing the interview is.
Be cautious about being overconfident without being able to back it up; it won’t do you much good. Saying that “I can learn quickly” is trite to the point that you might as well have not said it at all. However, if you back it up by examples & tie it in to the specific responsibilities of the job, it makes you stand out. Example: “My recent pharmacy manager asked me to start a pharmacy-run smoking cessation program. Although I didn’t have the experience, I participated in intensive training & created a program that helped 121 patients quit smoking in 6 months; X % of the patients continued to be non-smokers after 12 months.” See the difference?
This is something that my students in the Get the Edge program have practiced to get the edge over the competition during the application & interview process.
What do you think–is it aptitude or attitude? Share your thoughts or your own experience where aptitude or attitude seemed to have counted more—comment below.