2210, 2020

Central Fill or No?

  “… we’re operating on the assumption that central (fill) is a less-expensive way to fill prescriptions.  But we haven’t found the exact right measure of this yet.”    Director of Pharmacy Operations Overview Hospital patient markets require on-demand delivery and resist delays to departure from the hospital. Central fill is an on-demand fill system requiring patients to delay delivery or pre-order prescriptions. Removing production delays help reduce order-to-counter delivery time.

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2010, 2020

January 2020 Cost to Dispense Study: Tale of Two Stories

  The results of a sponsored study on prescription dispensing cost dressed the emperor in new clothes for all to see what he would have you see. Overview An industry sponsored Study sets $12.40 as the cost to dispense each prescription, with direct store labor accounting for 58% of this amount. Results suggest an average prescription takes 14 minutes to fulfill giving a completion rate of just 4 prescriptions per

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1205, 2020

Hospitals: Know Your Pharmacy Board

This is not a case of ‘what you don’t know won’t hurt you’.  Pharmacy boards use regulations to interfere with competitor operations.  Boards dominated by independent pharmacy owners try to restrict chain drug stores.  Chain drug store boards look to interfere with independents and hospital outpatient pharmacies.   Pharmacy regulations are meant to ensure the safety of patients.  But what happens if those regulations also impose operating restrictions that determine

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2804, 2020

The Enemy is Us

Illinois Collaborative Pharmaceutical Task Force Postmortem Dissection Recent Illinois pharmacy regulations, or lack thereof, precipitating from a 2016 Chicago Tribune investigation might best illustrate how retail dominance can bias development of pharmacy regulation and preserve drug chain competitive advantage. The investigation found significant counseling issues in 52% of chain drug pharmacies. In response, legislators recommended changes aimed at eliminating, or at least reducing, this clear risk to the public. The

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2804, 2020

Staff Turnover

Staff turnover has several possible causes:  you, the staff, or more likely … the wrong process.  This is especially true when asking staff to achieve goals without the right tools.   In the face of what I believe to be compelling truths and urgency, how is it possible that hospitals are not inspired to transforming outpatient pharmacy operations? Staff turnover is one consequence of failing to match performance expectation with

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2804, 2020

Look to the Skies

A lack of demand queue resilience places extra emphasis on developing alternative delivery mechanisms for outpatient pharmacy product.     I searched the ceilings, walls, utility hallways, and even the skies looking for solutions to an efficient and functional outpatient pharmacy hub. This hospital, like many others, needed to control cost-to-fill while addressing leakage through the many patient egress points. What to do … Hospitals use tube systems to move

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2804, 2020

Beware the Sesquipedalian*

One gets an unique appreciation for the duplicity of the crafted word having worked with and for consultants.  Words lose their meaning when used solely as a sales hook.       I recently read a sales piece from a consulting company on specialty pharmacy. It used words like ‘navigate’, ‘transformation’, ‘landscape’ and the like. It is OK to use words like these if they are more than window dressing.

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2804, 2020

Look to the Horizon

No glory is harvested from planning.  We are rewarded for what we do today, what can be realized from our actions … today.   With a fresh MBA certificate on my wall, I was excited for the invitation that found me mixing with top management in the board room. Two presenters demonstrated something called ‘pong’ on a cathode ray tube. I wondered what they were smoking as they confidently asserted

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2704, 2020

Cultivators of Outpatient Pharmacy Transformation

Who is ultimately responsible for the transformation of outpatient pharmacy?  One argument is management, and that is fair. Yet, is there room for others to participate?   I was frustrated by the absence of any movement in an outpatient pharmacy after weeks of discussions, analysis, and encouragement. Finally, I asked what I could do to get the ball rolling. The answer was shocking and telling. “We were told not to

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