Currently, the pharmacy industry is facing a variety of challenges each day including:
- Staffing shortages
- Population demographics driving pharmaceutical utilization
- Tightening reimbursements
- Demand for immunization programs
- Global increase in chronic conditions
Who in the industry has time to consider patient experience as part of their overall strategy, given everyone is working each day to meet community needs by filling prescriptions accurately and on-time with limited staff?
Focusing on Patient Experience Can Be a Win-Win
Focusing efforts on the experience of your customers is a ‘win-win’ for pharmacists, patients and commercial pharmacies.
Focusing on the needs of patients leads to patient satisfaction.
Patient satisfaction leads to customer retention.
Customer retention leads to relationship building that provides pharmacist satisfaction.
Pharmacist satisfaction leads to staff retention.
It seems that this math can be simplified as happy patients equals happy pharmacists, and that creates a positive cycle of reinforcement. Let’s take a deeper look at how pharmacy automation figures into this equation.
Pharmacy Automation Improves Patient and Pharmacist Experience
Pharmacy automation can be the variable that finally disrupts the hamster wheel many pharmacists find themselves in day in and day out. Short-staffed, many pharmacists spend the day juggling pill counting, answering phones, delivering immunizations and completing administrative tasks, simply trying to keep up with demand. All this work deprives pharmacists of the time to build relationships, counsel patients, develop and deliver programs addressing the needs of their community, and to perform truly meaningful work.
Pharmacy automation benefits pharmacists and retailers by moving low value pill counting work out of the store and away from the pharmacist while helping the pharmacy to lower the cost to fill. Pharmacist satisfaction can improve as more of their time is freed up to care for patients, helping to increase job satisfaction and retention. Even with today’s staffing challenges, imagine what your pharmacists could do with the time afforded to them by a pharmacy automation system.
A study by Wolters Kluwer showed that 58% of Americans said they are likely to visit a local pharmacy as a first step with a non-emergency issue. The same study showed, when getting advice on medications, more than 75% of Americans look for input from qualified professionals other than their physician and that four out of five would also be comfortable if pharmacists could write prescriptions. Worters Kluwer found that about 90% of people in the US live within five miles of a community pharmacy, and people visit those pharmacies 12 times more often than their own family doctors. These community pharmacists have become much more to patients. They are viewed as highly trained medical professionals who are ready to answer complex questions about chronic disease states or complicated polypharmacy regimens.
Why Does This Matter?
Current staffing challenges make focusing on patient and staff retention more critical than ever. According to the National Council for Prescription Drug Programs, (NCPDP) data published in Fortune Business Insights, the number of independent pharmacies increased 12.9% from 2010 to 2019. The increased demand for physicians, combined with projections about growth in our aging population, is creating opportunities for pharmacists to evolve and expand their role, positively impacting the health of patients managing chronic conditions including diabetes, hypertension and asthma.
According to Deloitte, pharmacists are a trusted, but often underutilized resource. Pharmacy automation can pave the way for pharmacists to focus on patient experience, practicing at the top of their license, and positively impacting front-line healthcare delivery through disease state management, medication counseling, vaccinations and providing other value-add services that drive patient satisfaction, pharmacist satisfaction and sustainable revenue.
Pharmacy automation is poised to shake up the industry in a positive manner, paving the way for a renewed focus on patient experience, leading to increased satisfaction for both patients and pharmacy staff, the true definition of a ‘win win’.
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