Pharmacy U news

The shift in recognizing obesity as a chronic disease, rather than simply a lifestyle issue, has elevated the importance of its management within healthcare. Pharmacists are excited because this change aligns with their focus on chronic disease management and provides new opportunities to address obesity with the same seriousness as diabetes or hypertension.

Make no mistake, as leaders, it is important to develop the people around us. This is not limited to support staff. It also includes helping to develop our peers and even the people we report to. When we develop people, we increase the overall capacity of the organization, and we instill an increased feeling of ownership with our team members.

In pharmacy, the iceberg principle will apply at each step of promotion along the various dispensary or head office jobs. This will also apply in the change from managerial to ownership roles. We can only see what we understand and the truth hits home when we finally step inside.

The days of ‘Command and Control’ – ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ – are long gone, and thankfully so. You don’t have to be the CEO to influence the culture of your organization or store. Everyone plays a part in the establishment of the work culture; the CEO simply sets the tone and encourages similar behaviours from every team member.

We are pharmacists. We are not lawyers. We are not real estate agents. However, that does not mean we are void of negotiating. Whether we are explaining a co-pay to a patient, signing an agreement with an employer, buying a pharmacy or making a staff schedule, there are parts of the pharmacist’s day where we just have to pull up our pants and negotiate.

Earlier in my career, I served on a team that was to develop new revenue streams for our pharmacies. Anything that was not traditional dispensing was labelled “clinical” and given to our team to work through. In those days, we set out to participate in as many of these projects as possible.

For decades, pharmacists have been listed among the most trusted professionals. That trust comes from character. It comes from heart. It comes from having access to all sorts of powerful tools (medications) and making sure they are used to their greatest benefit!

When I realized that patients want and expect their medication experts to guide many of their choices, I began putting effort into developing workflow that would reduce the number of times patients visited or called for interactions that did not require the pharmacist.