Previously, I discussed complacency as it relates to pharmacy practice. But this is not the only challenge a dedicated pharmacist faces. Even a great interventionist struggles with being reactive from time to time.
Reactive |rēˈaktiv|
adjective: acting in response to a situation rather than creating or controlling it:
To be fair, there is no way that anyone can avoid being reactive all of the time. Pharmacy is littered with opportunities for situations to arise that the pharmacist cannot reasonably predict and properly prepare. A common example might be receiving prescription electronically for a patient you have never seen before moments before (or even as) the patient walks through your door.
Strive for Proactive
Our pharmacy regularly struggles with this exact type of situation. In one regard, it is nice to be the place many providers refer patients. But a poorly handled referral (because you were not prepared) does nothing to help you grow your business. You only get one chance to make a first impression with a new patient. But a proactive approach will do wonders for your business image and your first impression.
A large part of being proactive is simple common sense, and most of it distills down to one thing: excellent patient and provider communication. The trick is to create a workflow that allows any unexpected order or issue to be initially addressed in an efficient manner. Note that I wrote addressed, not completed. Being proactive really means letting the patient know where you are with the issue, what is needed, and what to expect will happen next.
A Reactive Case Study
Recently, we received an unsolicited order for wound supplies from a local prescriber’s office for a patient we had never seen. The order was received by fax at 4:30 pm, and the office regularly closes at that point and no patient information (phone number, address etc) was included on the faxed order.
Because nothing was known about the patient or the order, and because the office was already closed, the pharmacist or technician places this order on the counter for the next day’s staff to address. The pharmacist’s shift ends at 5:00 pm and the pharmacist fails to let the others working know about the new order.
About 45 minutes after receiving the order, the patient presented to the pharmacy for the wound supplies that they are expecting to be ready.
When the patient arrives, the staff are confused and do not know about the order. They search around, and eventually find the order. At this point, the pharmacy staff is completely out of control of the situation and is entirely reactive to the problem. To make matters worse, the items that the patient needs are not ones stocked by the pharmacy, and the patient needs them now. The situation spirals from bad to worse, and the image of the pharmacy and pharmacist is tarnished in the eyes of the patient, who fully expected this to be done and ready.
Proactive Case (Version).
Being proactive in the case above is going to be difficult. Our first order of business would be to contact either the prescriber or the patient to assess the urgency of the order and to gain insight in to what their expectations were for our pharmacy. With the prescriber’s office being closed, the pharmacist could have the prescriber paged to gather additional information. The only other option would be to use a local phone directory to try to establish contact with the patient to determine their needs and expectations. Note that SOMETHING needs to be done shortly after the order is received, and whatever is done needs to be documented in a manner that the next person to deal with the situation will be able pick-up and immediately know what the situation is.
The pharmacist asked the technician to call the office and finds the office closed (as expected). Rather than page the prescriber, the technician attempts to look-up and contact the patient using the phone directory. They call what they believe to be the patient’s home number and get no answer, so they leave a general message for the patient indicating that they wish to speak with the patient about a new order received. Both of these calls are documented and placed into a pending queue for the pharmacy, and an action item is created and added to initiate a call to the office in the morning.
The pharmacy has done very little at this point, but they have been reasonably proactive. While do not have any additional information needed to proceed with the order, it is officially “pended” awaiting a call back from the patient and a call is scheduled for the morning to call the prescriber. The pharmacy now has documentation that they can share with the patient that will demonstrate a proactive approach.
This patient arriving shortly after the unexpected order is received is possibly the worst possible scenario, and the fact that the patient has an expectation that things will be ready aggravates the situation considerably. Two things, however, make this situation more manageable:
- The readily retrievable pended issue that can be matched to the new patient’s requests and
- The documentation of what was already done by the technician.
The above items demonstrate to the patient that the pharmacy is vested in solutions. Little time needed to be spent by the pharmacist or technician to get up to speed on the situation. Despite now being in a reactive position with this patient, the pharmacy handled the situation in the best possible way.
Being proactive applies to anything that could reasonably be anticipated. An common example might be counseling the patient on potential adverse drug reactions (ADRs) when they first receive the medication. Recently, a patient came into the pharmacy and received a shingles vaccination. The pharmacist that gave the immunization failed to proactively mention the possibility of a local rash (ADR) at the injection site that takes several days to appear and then disappear. The patient did have this local reaction and came into the pharmacy concerned. Proactively counseling would not have prevented the patient from coming to the pharmacy (when I counsel Zostavax, I ask them to come in if they have a reaction so I can assess the rash and further counsel on signs and symptoms of cellulitis for them to watch for), but it does prevent the patient from a moment of panic.
Conclusion
In business, image is everything. Being proactive can make a huge difference in all aspects of a pharmacy practice, and it is not limited to simple transactions. A proactive pharmacist will look for possible issues that are not currently issues. Things like the price of a medication might not be a problem for a 64 year old patient with excellent commercial insurance now, but thinking proactively, addressing the possibility of a less expensive medication now, before cost becomes an issue, is something that will make your pharmacy stand out. Think Proactive. Be Proactive. It can help you make every encounter count!