The Pillars of Success in Your Pharmacy

Welcome to The Weekly Fill! 🎉

I hope you all enjoyed the holidays! This week, we’re discussing the three pillars of success in your pharmacy: Prioritize, Personalize, and Perform! Whether you’re an independent pharmacy owner juggling multiple roles or a pharm tech working hard behind the scenes, these ‘pillars’ offer practical ways to make a real difference in your work and the people around you.

💊 The Big Fill: Prioritize, Personalize, Perform

What's happening?

These principles are here to help you stay organized, deliver exceptional care, and maintain a positive work atmosphere. Whether you’re balancing multiple roles or supporting patients daily, these pillars offer practical guidance for a fulfilling pharmacy experience.

Key points:

• Prioritize: Focus on what truly matters—start with the tasks that have the biggest impact on patients and your team.

• Personalize: Make each interaction count by understanding and catering to individual needs, whether it’s a patient, a colleague, or even yourself.

• Perform: Find and stick to workflows that keep things running smoothly and allow you to consistently deliver high-quality care.

What this means for you: By embracing these pillars, you can reduce stress, build stronger connections, and create a more positive, efficient workplace. Remember, even small steps toward improvement add up quickly.

Looking ahead: Use this time to reflect on what’s working and what could be better. As you plan for the months ahead, think about ways these principles can help you reach new levels of success—both personally and professionally.

Pharmacy dad joke of the week: Why did the pharmacist carry a ladder? Because they wanted to reach new heights! Ba dum dum tss.

👨⚕️ Pharmacists: Leading with Intention

What's Changing: Pharmacists are wearing more hats than ever: balancing patient consultations, clinical responsibilities, and team leadership.

Why It Matters: Your ability to prioritize and lead sets the tone for the entire pharmacy. A calm, clear approach helps the whole team operate more effectively and keeps patient care at its best.

Pro Tip:  Start each shift with a quick review of the day’s goals. Identify the top three tasks that will have the most impact and tackle them first.

👩⚕️ Technicians: Mastering the Details

What's Changing: Technicians are taking on increasingly diverse roles, from managing inventory to assisting patients and streamlining operations.

Why It Matters: Your efficiency keeps the pharmacy running like a well-oiled machine. Staying organized reduces stress and helps you provide exceptional service to both patients and your team.

Tech Tip: Dedicate 10 minutes at the start of each shift to organize your workspace and prep for the day’s tasks. Whether it’s setting up trays or creating a quick to-do list, these small habits can prevent bigger headaches later.

💉 Patients: Engaging with Your Own Care

What's Changing: Patients are relying more on digital tools and personalized care to manage their health effectively. They look to pharmacy professionals like you for guidance and trust.

Why It Matters: By utilizing a personalized approach and proactive support from your pharmacist, you can feel navigate your healthcare journey more confidently.

Patient Reminder: Check in with your pharmacist! They can provide you reminders about medication refills or simple wellness tips that can go a long way. 

🏪 Independent Pharmacy Owners: Building a Foundation for Success

What's Changing: As an owner, you’re balancing patient care, team management, and business goals; all while striving to maintain a supportive work culture.

Why It Matters: Your leadership creates the environment for your team to thrive. When you prioritize communication and support, you empower everyone to do their best work.

Owner Insight: Implement regular check-ins with your team. These don’t have to be formal. Sometimes a quick “How’s everything going?” can provide insights that lead to improvements.

🔮 Keeping an Eye Out: Planning Ahead

As we settle into 2025, take time to refine your workflows and team dynamics. Small, proactive changes, like updating a process or testing a new digital tool, can make a significant difference in the long run. Let’s make this year a testament to prioritizing what matters, personalizing every connection, and performing with excellence every day.

💡 ShiftRx Tip: Optimize Your Pharmacy Workflow

As the demand for pharmacy services continues to grow, now is the perfect time to evaluate and optimize your pharmacy workflow. Streamlining processes can improve efficiency and better patient care, allowing staff to manage the increasing workload. 

📅 Need a per diem pharmacist or technician? By utilizing the right staffing solutions, you can maintain quality service and ensure operations run smoothly. ShiftRx finds qualified professionals who can help fill in gaps and support your team, allowing you to focus on patient care. Check out the latest on ShiftRx!

🗞 Quick Scripts: Other Industry News

• Compounding Pharmacies Fight Over Tirzepatide: Compounding pharmacies face challenges as Eli Lilly, the creator of tirzepatide, steps into a legal battle regarding its availability and use. The case revolves around whether compounding pharmacies can offer this weight loss drug, which is currently facing supply shortages. Read more

• Washington's New Abortion Pill Prescription Program: Washington has launched a new pilot program allowing pharmacists to prescribe abortion pills, expanding access to reproductive healthcare. This move comes with growing debates over the availability of these services in various states. Read more

• Pharmaceutical Giants Face New Legal and Market Challenges: Major pharmaceutical companies, including Teva, Bausch + Lomb, and Bristol-Myers, are dealing with regulatory and market shifts. Read more

• 2025 Outlook for the Pharmaceutical Industry: The pharmaceutical sector in 2025 is expected to face new challenges, including pricing pressures, regulatory hurdles, and evolving healthcare demands. This article outlines key trends and predictions for the upcoming year. Read more

🌟Pharma Stars

Pharma Stars is our new weekly spotlight for Pharmacists and Pharmacy Techs! Each week we will be shining a light on pharmacy professionals and industry leaders who inspire us. 

This week we’re introducing Erik Abel, PharmD, MBA, a seasoned clinical executive and Vice President of Clinical Strategy & Innovation at GE Healthcare.  There he leads transformative efforts in digital health and AI-driven diagnostics largely focused on the Caption Care Clinical Services solution. With a unique background that bridges clinical, technological, and business domains, Erik specializes in advancing patient-centered solutions that address critical gaps in care delivery. His work at Caption Care focuses on leveraging AI to simplify diagnostic imaging, improve accessibility for underserved/under-resourced populations, and align innovation with real-world clinical needs. A recognized thought leader, Erik has contributed to over 40 publications and 30 national presentations, driving meaningful change at the intersection of healthcare policy, strategy, technology, and patient outcomes.

With the rapid integration of AI and digital solutions in clinical care, particularly in ultrasound and diagnostic imaging, what are the biggest opportunities and challenges you anticipate in bettering accessibility and accuracy for underserved populations?

“The biggest opportunity lies in democratizing ultrasound, making high-quality imaging accessible by enabling image acquisition by non-traditional users such as nurses, medical assistants, and phlebotomists (perhaps pharmacists and pharmacy technicians if the scope of practice doesn’t prohibit). With AI-guided solutions like Caption Guidance™, users receive step-by-step probe positioning instructions, much like GPS for imaging, enabling diagnostic-quality image acquisition without relying solely on highly-trained sonographers, while allowing these to be read by trained providers. This empowers care teams in underserved communities, opening doors for earlier disease detection and intervention. 

However, challenges persist, including demystifying AI to build trust, aligning business models to support adoption, and advancing payer and policy frameworks to support expanded user bases. The scarcity of cardiac-trained sonographers (~13,000 nationwide in the U.S.) underscores the urgency of conserving their expertise for advanced imaging while enabling new technology users to help deliver impactful care. By addressing these barriers, we can scale AI-driven solutions to improve equity and outcomes across diverse populations.”

 In your work with GE Healthcare & Caption Care, how do you balance the need for technological innovation with the need to maintain a strong focus on patient outcomes and user-centric design for clinicians? 

“At GE HealthCare, our mission of creating a world where healthcare has no limits is realized through solutions that improve patient outcomes while empowering clinicians. Caption Guidance™ exemplifies this, transforming ultrasound from a specialized tool into an accessible diagnostic resource. By enabling non-sonographers to acquire diagnostic-quality cardiac images, we remove traditional barriers, facilitating earlier detection and intervention. 

Caption Care expands on this innovation through a full turnkey solution—integrating AI-guided ultrasound with a scalable workforce and workflows to support home-based or office-based cardiac screening along with cardiologist-led interpretations. This empowers clinicians to act on insights, ensuring preventive care aligns with patient-centered priorities. As Peter Drucker said, "You can't improve what you can't measure," you also cannot manage a disease that has not been detected. By screening at-risk populations for evidence of structural heart disease, we enable interventions that can transform the trajectory of care.”

As a Pharm.D. leading clinical strategy & innovation at GE Healthcare, how do you leverage your pharmacist background in shaping digital health solutions?

“As a clinical pharmacist, I have always aimed to be a 'swiss-army knife' and versatile asset to my team and the people we have the privilege of caring for where blending my expertise in disease progression, diagnostics, and therapeutic decision-making with a great depth of understanding in healthcare systems and the business of healthcare, including payer models, revenue cycles, and IT interoperability. At GE HealthCare, this perspective helps drive product and business innovation to help detect and manage conditions earlier, such as Stage B heart failure, while exploring ways to expand capabilities through partnership.

Despite moving far beyond a traditional pharmacist role, my central focus remains on advancing equitable, affordable, and accessible care by enabling the right decisions, with the right tools, at the right time—whether through process, diagnostics, therapeutics, analytics, or policy advocacy. Healthcare starts with humanism where we have to keep people caring for people in the center. This means rethinking human problems, designing solutions that support both clinicians and patients, and driving progress towards value-based care and enhanced clinical goals.”

That’s it for today’s fill!

Stay tuned for next week’s issue. If you enjoyed this, please share it with your pharmacy friends. Until then, keep filling those scripts and making an impact!

Doses and mimosas, ShiftRx Team

Redefining staffing for pharmacy professionals, one shift at a time.

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