In this, our first social media round up, we wish to explore what we do as Pharmacists.
Wonder
why a UK pharmacist takes over 20 minutes to take a packet off a shelf,
stick it in a bag, note what they've done, and take my money?
The following conversation then ensued between ourselves and Anne Dagan
MURONLINE
Unfortunately that characterisation of what UK pharmacists do is inaccurate. Pharmacies are medicines management centres.
ANNE DAGAN
As someone who specialises in process improvement I don't see an efficient process in all the time I stand watching
MURONLINE
At
muronline we stand 4 efficient processes but ur initial tweet suggests
that all the chemist does is count & label tabs. We think that is a
gross over simplification of what we do as chemists. We need to better
manage expectations & we r beginning to grapple with that as a
profession. We will continue to make sure our processes r efficient.
We will now use this medium to expand on what we mean by a community pharmacy being a medicines management centre:
The
community pharmacy is changing, and because of our increasing role as
integral members of the healthcare team, our patients and other
healthcare professionals are begining to rely on us for
medicines-related advise and solutions. Anyone who has ever worked in a
typical pharmacy will understand that at any given time, a number of
things compete for the pharmacist's attention. Telephone calls,
prescription queries etc. The pharmacist is constantly aligning and
realigning his priorities on the fly depending on urgency by exercising
his professional judgement. The notion that all we do is count and
label tablets is not only wrong but is something we cannot recognise in
the current working environment. Some years back maybe, but not now.
It
is in the explicit interest of the pharmacist to serve the customer
promptly. So it is not unusual to serve someone promptly when the
pharmacy is not busy. However, this cannot be case when you are
conducting an MUR or dealing with other urgent queries. It is a
question of priority. We have examples of when we have had to give
priority to dispensing medication for an unwell baby on antibiotics. By
and large, our customers are realising this - and the fact is, they do
give us a lot lea way.
As an MUR Evangelist, your
priority is to serve everyone of your customers as promptly as you can.
Having a balanced skill mix in the pharmacy can help, but most
importantly, just let the customer know what you are doing when things
are taking longer than usual, (preferably give the customer a realistic
expectation of waiting time). MUROnline would like to use this
opportunity to reassure our customers that the changes happening in
your pharmacies are for the best and you can now make better use of
your pharmacists. Build some waiting time into your visit to the
pharmacy. A 20 minutes wait is not the norm, but may be likely.
Now we switch our attention to another tweet by Jennifer Johnson (
@jrjallcorn) who wrote:
Dear pharmacist: When I come to pick up a script- please don't yell out the name of my meds. Thanks!
Surely an MUR Evangelist would not do that!
