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Ensuring Pharmacy Technicians’ Proficiency in Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies

 Hello, and thanks for listening to Over the Counter, the podcast from 

This podcast series was created in partnership with AmerisourceBergen (AB) and Good Neighbor Pharmacy (GNP) as part of Drug Topics’ coverage of the 2021 ThoughtSpot conference and trade show.

For more exclusive coverage of ThoughtSpot 2021, including more podcast episodes, check out our dedicated 

In this episode, Good Neighbor Pharmacy customers each serving very different communities reflect on the past year and discuss the future of independent pharmacy. Abby Rice of Norton, Kansas, Jennifer Shannon of Johns Creek, Georgia, and Kevin DeMass of Salt Lake City, Utah, share their unique experiences in navigating the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic.

 Hi, everyone, and thank you so much for tuning in to today's discussion in partnership with 

I'm Jennifer Shannon, and I'm the owner of 

Lily's pharmacy and Wellness Center located in Johns Creek, Georgia.

Our pharmacy is roughly 8 years old this year, and we're located in a very highly populated suburb outside of Atlanta. I am so passionate about being a pharmacist. I have loved watching our pharmacy grow and I loved watching it shine over the last couple of years and see our clinical services, our vaccination services, and our patient services grow at another level.


But I'm super happy to be here today with Abby Rice, my colleague and owner of 

 and Kevin DeMass, owner and pharmacist of 

The Apothecary Shoppe in Salt Lake City, Utah

. Thank you both so much for being here. I'm excited to have the opportunity to speak with these 2 pharmacy owners as we reflect on the last year and share our vision of the future of community pharmacy. Before we get into these topics, I'll pass it over to Abby Rice and Kevin DeMass to introduce themselves and their pharmacies.

 Thank you so much, Jennifer. It's great to be here with you as well. My name is Abby Rice. My husband and I own Moffet Drug in Norton, Kansas. We serve a very small rural farming community with a significant elderly population. We've been in business in this location for 12 years and we are actually the only pharmacy in our community.

 Wow, I need to open a pharmacy there. Well, thanks, Jennifer, and thanks Abby.

My name is Kevin DeMass, and I am one of the pharmacists and owners of The Apothecary Shoppe in Salt Lake City, Utah. Our pharmacy is 48 years old. We have a very diverse patient population. We have college students that are about a mile away at the University of Utah. We serve all the professors there. We have a large refugee population with refugee health located on our hospital campus, that's downtown.

I've got a lot of professionals downtown that are my patients: bankers, lawyers, business consultants. And that mixes in with my wonderful homeless population that's in Salt Lake City. They are wonderful patients of mine. I've got a lot of patients in the substance abuse and misuse community. I have a large population of HIV patients that we service, sex workers, as well as social and behavioral health patients that are in need of our services.

Were a little bit different as a city pharmacy. One differentiator for us, I think is that we've been there for so long that we have kind of earned and we try to maintain our patients’ trust in us. And we've kind of earned and maintained our community's trust in us, our community leaders, as well as those that live and serve in our community.

Another differentiator for my pharmacy, I think the second thing would be our consistency - the consistency with our products, the consistency with the service that the patients receive when they come in, and also the consistency of the improved health outcomes that our patients experience when they come to see us.

And I think the last thing as a differentiator for a city pharmacy is that I have no sign. There is no sign on my building. My pharmacy is located in the basement of a medical office building next to the sleep lab and cardiology and neuroscience center. And so, it's kind of like an old prohibition speakeasy where you got to know a person who knows a person who knows a person that has kind of a secret knock and knows a way to get in. But we are in no way a speakeasy pharmacy. Our doors are wide open, our arms are wide open, and the city can come in and we will love you and take care of you as much as humanly possible.

 Thanks, Kevin. That sounds amazing. I'm excited to dive into the conversation today. At Good Neighbor Pharmacy, there are more than 5000 independent pharmacies in every pocket of the country.

Today, we get to represent 3 of those. In the midst of a tumultuous and unpredictable year, one thing we have learned, for sure, is just how important it is that every single one of these independent pharmacies to their communities. Our patients are at the heart of everything we do and every decision we make. Each of us brings such a unique perspective to the table to share today, as we reflect on this year.

I know for you guys, one of the biggest hurdles was the COVID-19 pandemic and how we had to adapt to the changes in serving patients at this time. Many of our states were in lockdown. Our pharmacy actually changed to only curbside delivery and home delivery during the worst of the pandemic. We had a nursing home that was significantly affected, and we had to prompt those changes to protect their population, as well as others.

It was a challenge to make so many transitions at once. And I know you guys felt that as well. We ended up requiring employees to wear masks, which is a challenge. And I know that our pharmacists didn't like that as well. And we closed our lobby, like I said, and when we opened it back up, we asked the public to wear masks to protect the populations that we serve as well.

Of course, becoming a vaccine provider for COVID-19 and everything that entailed was definitely a challenge. And I know you guys felt it too. Making sure there was equitable vaccine access and our rural community was at the top of our priority list. And we faced significant vaccine hesitancy in our area, so I think educating the population became really important. And being somebody, like you said, Kevin, who is trusted with patient care helped definitely overcome a few of those obstacles.

I do think independent pharmacy is best positioned to do this work. As entrepreneurs and small businesspeople, we are able to transition quickly and react to changes without much hesitancy. Kevin, I know you have a diverse patient population out in Salt Lake City, how did you adapt to continue to serve your community during COVID-19?

 Oh, man, Abby, you just you just touched on a couple of things that I learned by participating in ThoughtSpot this week with AmerisourceBergen’s show - how pharmacies, independent pharmacy owners, how they're so great at adaptation and innovation. And the things that you did in your store are very similar to what we did.

And I ordered all this Plexiglas to put up into my store to turn it into the hugest salad bar that you could possibly see. And I didn't know how to hang Plexiglas, I didn't know how to do the cables. I didn't know how to get it down, and if it needs to be 4 inches off the counter or 3 inches off the counter. And it kind of reminded me of being back at the hospital and working in a laminar flow hood and trying to clean it down and measure how much air was actually pushing through. It was just, I mean, we just looked at each other like how are we going to adapt?

So anyway, long story short, we turned into the biggest salad bar in Salt Lake City, we have Plexiglas everywhere. And then on one Saturday, this is kind of a great story. One Saturday, my wife and I closed the store, we got a tape measure out, we went to the hardware store and we bought, I don't know, 7000 feet of yellow duct tape. And we were trying to social distance and trying to measure off exactly how we could protect our staff how we could protect our patients that were coming in.

And so, we made these great, big hopscotch squares inside the pharmacy. And then inside the big yellow box was a great big X. And so, as patients would come into our store and see us, you had to occupy an X. You couldn't be in outer darkness outside of an X, you had to be inside of an X. If you wanted to go to the soda fountain, you had to wait for the soda fountain X to clear out. If you wanted to go get band aids or if you wanted to come and see the pharmacist at the front, you had to wait your turn and move and occupy the X’s that were in the store.

After a while, the customers caught on to how we were going to kind of do the traffic flow and how we were going to move through the store. And it took maybe 2 to 3 weeks, and we started having customers that were hopping from X to an X to an X to an X through the whole store and then you would hop like 5 boxes until you actually got to the front of the counter to drop off your prescription at the pharmacy. It was absolutely crazy. But we were so stressed, that this was just kind of a way that made it fun for the patients and made it fun for the staff.

We became the sanitizers of the universe. We wiped down every surface every 20 minutes. We made sure that the X's were occupied. We just adapted and innovated as much as we could.

Now, I told you that I'm in the basement of a building, so we don't have a drive-up window. There's no tunnel access to the pharmacy. So, we instigated curbside delivery Abby, like you said, that you guys did. And we could either stand at the elevators and wait 20 minutes for the elevators to open, or we could run up 20 flights of stairs, and deliver the prescriptions outside of the parking lot. So, needless to say, we're all in very great shape, our lungs are working very well, our calves are very strong. And we've made it up and down those stairs all day long for the last 18 months.

We're very adaptive, and we're very innovative, and we're still doing it to this day. You talked about challenges that you faced during the rollout, Holy smokes, the challenges that we’ve had. We were thinking, “How are we going to staff? What's going to happen if I have a pharmacist that goes down? What's going to happen if I have a delivery driver that gets sick and they have to quarantine them?” Or if I have a technician or 2 technicians that get sick? How are we going to get through this and work alone? Am I going to be able to keep the doors open and take care of the patients?

We made all these diagrams and we figured out all of these battle plans on what we would do to staff our store. I actually ended up reaching out to a couple of my college professors at the University of Utah and I said, “Hey, if I have somebody go down, can you come and help me? Will you send a student down? Will you send a PGY-1 down to see me? Will you come down and help me?” And they helped us with open arms. It was unbelievable how they would come down and help us and they helped us with the vaccine rollout.

Good Neighbor Pharmacy Reflects on the Success of the Federal Retail Pharmacy Program

Now, the vaccine rollout was a total other crazy, crazy experience. Our pharmacy enrolled in the Federal Retail Pharmacy Program. We got to sit on the sidelines in phase 2 and watch everything that was happening in phase 1A, phase 1B, phase 1C. And so, vaccine was out there early in 2020 and I get hundreds of phone calls every day. “Kevin, do you have the vaccine? I want to come down. My wife and I are on our way.” “Kevin, do you have this? When are you getting it?” Kevin, you have this?” No kidding, we had a waiting list for the vaccine that was like a phone book of New York City, the old fashioned phone books. It was just lengthy and long. And I kept saying “No, I'm in phase 2, I'm in phase 2, I can't get it.”

And really, I've got to do a shout out at this point to Jenni Zilka and AmerisourceBergen and her relentless efforts in getting vaccines to independent pharmacies, and getting vaccine into those places where the communities could use it. In Salt Lake City, we were nothing but a mass distribution site, so you had to go stand in line for 6 hours in the cold in the rain in the snow, and wait for your turn. And many of my patients did that patiently and then get there and then the vaccine was out. Then they'd run out and they were done.

With my patient population, they were one and done, they were out. They went back into the shadows, no vaccine for them. And, literally, Jenny called me and said, “Your vaccines are on the way,” the vaccine arrived in my pharmacy, we started on the calling list. And in probably less than 30 minutes, I had people at the door, and I had vaccine in arms in less than 30 minutes once we got the vaccine.

And then, we kind of noticed that there were some disparities in where the vaccine was going. For us it wasn't getting in our patients arms quick enough. One thing that we did is that we partnered with nonprofit organizations that come in and see battered women, that come in and that are in homeless shelters, that treat the Utah AIDS Foundation. We partnered with doctors, offices, hospitals, clinics that kind of see different folks in our city that you might not really see during the daytime. And we partnered with them and I said, “Hey, you know what, we've got a little bit of a social media presence and I can reach X amount of patients, but if we partner with what you what you can do on your side, and then we share with your social media and their social media and then we mix together, we can expand this and reach the patients that we need to do.” So, they came into the pharmacy, we did a couple of film clips, we did a couple of vaccine education pieces so that we could address vaccine hesitancy, address side effects, address the availability, and boom! The floodgates opened and we got doses into people's arms that otherwise wouldn't have got the doses.

Anyway, I'm going to stop. Hey, Jen, I know that you guys had a lot of challenges out where you are. What was your experience in owning and operating a pharmacy right outside of Atlanta through the pandemic? I know you've mentioned you've got an older population, how did you make them feel connected through such an isolated moment in time with this crazy pandemic?

 Thank you so much. What I love about independent pharmacists, we are all cut from the same cloth, everyone tells their story. And I'm just like, “Okay, that's sort of like mine.” And we've figured out a way to adapt really quickly. And so, I'm always so just honored and privileged to hear more of them.

But, just like you guys, when all of this started to go down, my husband, Mike, and I were like, “What are we going to do?” We have for kids, all of a sudden they're home. I've got all these team members that I'm not sure are okay to come in. Everyone was so scared in the beginning. And I think we had some of the things that we adapted to in place. We always have had a drive-thru, much to my dismay, we've always had a drive-thru. And then we had a really long talk with our team members when this all started and they said, “We're here we're here for the long haul, we just want to feel safe.”

So, we did close our doors. That was one of the hardest things - and I've told so many people - that my husband and I have ever done. We clawed, scratched, begged for people to walk in our doors when we opened and to close them for that length of time was painful and really hard for me. I'm a total people person, and I love people. So, like, “Whoa, you took away my people and my hugs all at one time?” That was a really bad day.

Like you said, Kevin, we do have a large senior population. We also have a really large young family population. The thing about Johns Creek, it's sort of multi-generational, because a lot of families have moved closer to each other. We have grandparents, their kids, and then their kids, so I really always feel so blessed to take care of all of them. But I thought, “Okay, so now our patients can't see our delivery drivers, who really were some of the only people that saw them anyway.” Sometimes if they didn't have family nearby, how do we reach them? How do I talk to them beyond just a phone call? And so that's when we decided, it was actually my kids. I'm going to credit my kids, especially Lily, my oldest daughter. She said, “Mom, can we just make some cards?” And I was like, “Yeah, you should make cards for all of them.” And then Lily was like, “What kind of factory are you trying to run, we need some help.” So, I just put a social media asked to our village. And of course, the village came through so much for us. And not only did all these kids in our community make these cards for our older patients, our older patients started writing them letters back. And I can't begin to tell you like how awesome it is to have a front row seat to so much kindness right in front of you. And I never thought I would witness something like that. We really did adapt. Our delivery drivers came out still every day, they just couldn't see the patients they had to drop things off right in the homes or outside on the front porch and wave.

But I think our biggest challenges were when we found out the vaccines were coming. And Kevin, I heard your story about people calling you every day, my neighbors are convinced I moved to because they were literally knocking on my door and I just kept saying, “I don't have them yet.” I know AmerisourceBergen is working so hard for us. And I'm going give another shout out to Jenni Zilka. I know she spent hours for us.

And so that day, I got the call that you're getting some vaccines and I was like, “Okay, like 30 or 40.” And they said, “No, 1200.” And I think I cried. And then I said, “Okay, how are we going to do this now?” And my mom's a nurse and she said, “I'll come out there every day and give shots for you.” And my dad was like, “I'll be there like, I'm not a health care person, but let me know what you need.” And then I realized, well, how do I get all of these as fast as I can and people's arms? And so again, I went to that social media ask and I just said, I need volunteers. And I think I cried on the video because I didn't know what to do. And I think within the hour, we had 30 or 40, possibly 50 people say, “Let me know what you need. I'll be there.” The pharmacy schools came out, our patients came out and helped us run those clinics. And my dad directed traffic like a boss, and my husband designed all the logistics and we vaccinated 500 people the next day within 3 hours. I'm going to give my husband a big shout out because the engineer design went really well.

And from then on, we just kept getting more vaccines and we've been able to do, I think in the 15,000 range since we got them. I feel really fortunate to see that our little pharmacy that's grown, not only did it grow inside the walls, it grew outside the walls, and you just don't realize how many people are trying to lift you up every day when you don't even see them. All of us pharmacists adapted really easily and quickly, but I think it's our patients and our community and our village that really just like jumped in. I never thought I would see something like that. I feel very grateful for that.

But even though the last couple years weren't easy, I really feel like we have climbed over a mountain. And hopefully that mountain is still on the downslope, and we don't give up. I love independent pharmacists for that. We just figure out how to do it and we move on. But I, I really keep saying this, and I should have put my sunglasses on. Again, the future is so bright, we need to wear shades.

 I totally agree. This past year has been a heavy weight and a heavy burden. We've all felt it on our backs. Moving forward, one of the most important parts of overcoming and eventually bouncing back from such a devastating experience is being optimistic: optimistic for the future, taking the right steps to prioritize our patients and their health as we move forward.

One of the things that I plan to protect post COVID-19 is really prioritizing our patients. We really did focus everything that we did on our patients - they were number 1. And really our staff was number 2. And we really put a patient-centered approach on everything that we did. To protect and move that and kind of develop on to that, that we have done probably for the last 18 months, specifically is adapting to the cultural competencies that are all around us. Jen, you talked about multifamily generations that are kind of coming back. We've had that, but I don't think we have really laser focused in on that, like we have the last leg during this pandemic. Each one of us has probably seen that in their pharmacies for years and years and years. But it really became so apparent for us during COVID-19.

You notice people that are working different hours, people are eating different foods, they're speaking different languages, they have grandma and grandpa and aunts and uncles, they've lost jobs, they're all living together, they're pulling all their resources together. So, keeping that focus on patient care, I think should be number 1 for us.

We had difficulty attracting patients and keeping the patients coming. We could communicate with them by phone, social media, but patients weren't coming into our building. Our hospital was empty, and they were holding all the beds for COVID-19 patients. And the emergency room had 2 or 3 people a day. And people are doing FaceTime calls and video calls and Zoom calls to see their doctors. There were no surgeries. It just went down. It was a ghost town.

But there was a there was a silver lining in the ghost town though, because it's called Vaccine Finder. And Vaccine Finder was huge for us for attracting patients. And so, I told you, we don't even have a sign outside. People would type in, “I gotta find a vaccine in my zip code.” And they say, “Oh, my heck, there's a pharmacy 2 blocks away from me, I had no idea.” And hundreds and hundreds of patients came in and said I didn't even know there was a pharmacy here. And I said, “Well guess what, you do now! What medications are you on? What disease states do you want us to manage? We want to be your care center, we want to be your health care destination now.” So that was a godsend silver lining for sure.

We diversified a little bit, we had to find tricky ways to keep the revenue streams coming. And one of the things that really turned out great for us during the pandemic was long-acting injectable therapy. We're kind of looking into the future, we're going to try to turn our pharmacy into the destination for long acting injectable therapy for multiple disease states. We're seeking out providers who are using this and looking for help finding pharmacies like ours, that can bring a patient in, educate a patient on what the drug expectations might be what they can expect from that drug and then receive their injection there at the pharmacy, along with their other medications that we do for that patient and either do a fee for service, which is awesome, that's a cash business or maybe even look into medical billing. So, that's one thing that we're breaking out into for the future.

We've set some goals to keep us there. Reemphasizing vaccines totally - patients kind of forgot about that. We've been hammering them with vaccines for years and years and years. But now you get a COVID-19 vaccine that's kind of like a Star Wars vaccine, developed by Luke Skywalker, and it has the power of the force. And people really listen. And they're like, “Whoa, are all vaccines like this?” And I said, “Haven't you been paying attention for the last 25 years? Where have you been, we've had this conversation.” But now, the COVID-19 vaccines have really opened the eyes to our senior patients, our middle-aged patients and our young patients. And that's just kind of a blessing. So, we're focusing on that. And we're focusing on increasing that awareness in our patients and their families, and in our communities.

Now, Abby, tell me what the future looks like for those folks post-COVID-19 out in Norton, Kansas?

 Well, Kevin, I have to tell you, and Jennifer as well, that we are always super excited about the future of pharmacy, especially now. But it's a little bit hard to focus on the future when you still feel like you're in the trenches a little bit. And I know you guys do, too, with everything that's going on.

But one thing I think we took away was pharmacies really showed their worth during the pandemic and stood up and were heard in our role as part of the health care system, which I think was reinvigorating, for some of us. I think, at times independent pharmacy owners are okay to take a backseat, right? And we stood up and said, “Here we are, we can do this work,” which was fun to watch.

And I think that as people become more comfortable with pharmacies being a hub of care, it becomes easier to retain and attract patients. There were some really good changes that came out of the pandemic. And I think it was ones we things that we had, but we overlooked prior to dealing with all of these issues, I don't think we understood how important it was to personally interact with every patient. And that being taken away, you've kind of are like, “Oh my gosh, it's so important that I can look them in the eye and tell them what to do.” Or how do you overcome vaccine hesitancy when you can't do that face to face, which was really difficult. And I think you got a realization of how important it was for your patients to be coming in the door instead of having to lock down like most of us had to do. It's very hard to maintain rapport with them when you're at arm's length.

And another thing is that we became more than just pharmacy owners. We had some vaccinations that we did through the long-term care program. And we were the only people that these patients had seen in months because their long-term care facility was on lockdown. And we had family members calling us and saying, “Can we send you pictures to show grandma of their grandkids when you go in to vaccinate them?” And it was shocking. And then we went in, and it was like a party, these long-term care patients. Actually, we did it, I think on the day before New Year's, and they called it their New Year's party. And they were excited because this was their ticket to open back up.

And so, we became more than just people giving them vaccines to the community because we became an avenue for communication with their loved ones. And that was great to see. But right now, we're still battling COVID-19. We don't have a significant amount of plans for increasing services, because right now we're still trying to get our public vaccinated. Most of that is just overcoming hesitancy right now. I'm having trouble filling a 15 vile lot of the Moderna vaccine and getting 15 people to take it. It's a struggle, for sure. We are still battling those things. But we do have a huge goal of getting our community vaccinated, getting our kids back to school safely, and getting COVID-19 under control, so we can definitely resume what is our new normal, because I don't know that we’d ever go back to what we considered our normal.

Jennifer, how are you continuing to attract and retain your patients over time? And do you think that process will shift in your near future?

 During this whole process, one of our friends said, “Okay, you're going to touch all these people. Are you going to tell them how awesome you are?” Because we are all terrible at telling people how awesome we are. And I find that every time I talk to one of my colleagues, no matter where they're located, we have all these great things happening inside our walls, but we fail sometimes to tell people.

So, my husband is from New Jersey, so he has a little less shame than I do and he decided, “I think we should give every patient a letter thanking them for coming, thanking them for being here, but then also asking them to be here for us to so we can continue to do these sorts of things for our community at the level we want to do them.

And, oh my gosh, that simple letter was life changing. It grew our business probably 150%. Over the last few months, it has brought a volume of patients that I prayed for that I never imagined we would get coming through our doors. And so, I think that it was a reminder to me that we always have to be doing that, even when we feel like our business is in a really good place. It's never done, right? We always have to be working towards positive growth. I think that we have gained a lot of great new families. And that has kind of spread like wildfire through our community. And through that, that's enabled me to bring in a practice manager that can help my husband and I get a handle on how we want to grow.

And the biggest thing I've been wanting to work on is our wellness center and the clinic, where we have a medical director to bring in more pharmacist-based services for patients that I can adjust therapy, see them in between their doctor visits, very similar to what I did in the hospital. But I just needed to get a handle on COVID-19 before we could take off with that. But I really think that my role in our pharmacy is moving so much further around the counter and with the patient. And that's been my whole goal the entire time.

So, while it's been a really hard, stressful a couple of years, in a way it has brought some shining lights to our practice that I can bring some new things forward and really touch our patients in a different way. And Kevin, when you mentioned reaching all the family members, it's so important, they're right in front of us. And we can sometimes be that hub for all of them. And I'm like, “Whoa, Whoa, that was a lot of information about what's going on in your family. But I'm super honored to have all of you.” And Abby, I can relate like people calling saying, “Well, if you're not afraid to go over to my mom or go to that home, can you tell her this,” we all have had those moments. And I think for me, reminding myself, “Be not afraid,” has been a really good mantra every day for me to just keep my head on straight and be positive about everything that's going on.

Yeah, I think that our pharmacy will continue to grow. This is a tremendous growth for us. And my new direction will be to be better about communicating with the providers about our services. We get their prescriptions, we call their office and get some middle person in between them. But we really need to continue to work to know each other. So that's my next level of growth, I think. And I'm just so proud of everybody, all of us. I mean, we really have been resilient through all of this.

I could talk on for hours and hours, but I think I will probably end here. And thank you guys both so much for a great discussion. As Kevin mentioned earlier, continuing to prioritize our patients, our goals, and remaining optimistic throughout this entire process is so important. It's been wonderful speaking with you both. It has been a total pleasure for me. And I have so much respect and appreciation for all that you've done and continue to do for your patients. I love hearing these stories. Thank you guys so much for sharing it with me today.

 Yes, Jennifer and Kevin, thanks again. It's been great. I love listening to both of you. We've had such similar experiences, but different and it's great to hear what's been going on in those community pharmacies and how we've shown our communities what we can do. And I hope that that continues for many years. And good luck to both of you.

 Well, thank you, Jennifer, thank you, Abby, for stepping away from your patients for a couple of minutes and talking with me and sharing your experiences about what you've gone through COVID-19 and what things have been like in different parts of the country.

Just in closing as we were wrapping up the AmerisourceBergen ThoughtSpot 2021, the things that I've learned and for the for all of our listeners out there: a challenge for you is to go back and listen to a couple of the awesome keynote speakers that we had, listen to Travis Mills overcoming the odds. Each and every one of us, not just Jennifer, not just Abby, not just me, but each and every one of you have overcome tremendous odds and Travis will make you laugh and listen to his speech and adapt into your life and into the life of your staff.

And the second thing is go listen to chef Andrés, José Andrés. What a humble brilliant humanitarian and how he can get disaster meals to people in just a matter of hours and how he can pull things together and ultimately serve in the community. I mean, this to me, this is what independent community pharmacy is. And this is the face of each and every one of our practices.

In closing, on behalf of Jennifer out in Atlanta on behalf of Abby and Kansas and me here in Salt Lake City, I want to extend a huge thank you to those folks that AmerisourceBergen and Good Neighbor, pharmacy, and especially 

 for having us on the podcast today. It's been an absolute pleasure and we are so fortunate to share our experiences together, the challenges that we've gone through, our goals and our hopes for the pharmacy for the future that better days are ahead. Thanks so much for listening today.

 Thank you to Abby, Jennifer, and Kevin not only for taking the time to share their experiences as independent pharmacists, but also for continuing to support their communities and care for their patients during these challenging times. 

And thank you to AmerisourceBergen and Good Neighbor Pharmacy for partnering with 

And thank you for listening to Over the Counter. We hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, take a minute to subscribe and share with your pharmacy friends. We hope to see you next time at the counter.

ThoughtSpot

Good Neighbor Pharmacy customers from rural, suburban, and city areas reflect on the past year and discuss the future of independent pharmacy. 

Good Neighbor Pharmacy Customers Across the US Reflect and Look Forward

And thanks for tuning in to our newest podcast series in partnership with McKesson.

McKesson Pharmacy System’s clinically driven EnterpriseRx pharmacy workflow software is uniquely designed to help drive pharmacy efficiency and profitability while helping pharmacists provide clinical services that empower them to be more actively involved in patient care.

In this episode, I'm speaking with Heather Cusick, director of product management for clinical services at McKesson about vaccine workflow efficiencies within pharmacy.

If you're listening to this in November 2020, the flu season is inbound and compounded by the second wave of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Amid these challenges, Heather discusses how pharmacies can streamline vaccination programs and prepare for surges of patients, as well as other important considerations amid the current pandemic.

: Can we start off with a little bit of your background and your work with McKesson?

 Sure, my name is Heather Cusick and I'm currently the director of product management for our clinical solutions over our retail pharmacy systems. And so I am a pharmacist by trade. I got out of school and I actually worked at the Cleveland Clinic for several years as a staff pharmacist and then moved to Charleston, South Carolina, where I worked at a smaller community hospital there and that's actually where I got introduced more into the technology side, helping them with the configurations and their pharmacy systems.

And then I had an opportunity about 14 or so years ago to come to McKesson, helped as a product manager there from an inpatient perspective, working with the inpatient pharmacy, med reconciliation, some electronic prescription entry from the physician side. And as the retail pharmacy continues to expand community pharmacy and their opportunities, we have become more clinical in nature, had an opportunity to come over and really help to develop those solutions so our pharmacies can continue to offer additional services.

: With the 2020-2021 influenza (flu) season in full swing, what can pharmacies do to streamline their process while also ensuring they're able to deliver as many vaccines as possible to their patients?

 Yeah, great question. Coming from technology, that's where my mind goes first. And really, I think leveraging your technology in your pharmacy is key. A lot of times, people kind of become complacent or pharmacies become complacent with their technology and maybe aren't taking the most recent updates, things of that nature. So really knowing your system, ensuring that you're staying up to date with whomever you're using.

I know that as vaccines continue to grow, that's really a huge opportunity for pharmacy services. Technology solutions are focusing on that and growing their capabilities. Here at McKesson and our EnterpriseRx solution, we have recently enhanced many of our workflows specifically around the vaccine process, trying to really streamline it as much as possible, worked really in-depth with our pharmacies to eliminate any non-essential steps and dramatically cut some of that data entry time.

So ensuring that you're keeping up with that and using that technology will help to make sure the process is as clean as possible, and you're serving as many of your patients as possible.

I'd also say that we, in our solution suite, have streamlined our reporting to agencies. So after vaccination you have to report to your state agency - we've worked on that type of integration. We're also serving back opportunities, so when somebody rolls up their sleeve for their flu, you're prompted proactively within our solution if there are additional opportunities for that patient. So that's a conversation you can have. So really trying to leverage any of those points of interaction are key.

I would also say that, to deliver as many vaccines as possible and to efficiently use your staff, leveraging any of your technology as it relates to kind of a more appointment-based or a synchronization of medication dispensing, because then you have that opportunity. If the patient's only coming in, in general, once a month, and you're having a conversation with them about all of their different medication use, it’s a great time for them to schedule ahead.

When your patient is coming in for that flu vaccine, you can staff accordingly. And then it's also an opportunity to talk to that patient about any other opportunities they might have. So that's kind of the focus from that technology perspective.

Our latest podcast episode discusses how pharmacies can tap technology to boost vaccination programs for COVID-19 vaccines and others. 

COVID-19

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