Combating Health System Pharmacy Workforce Challenges

As a pharmacy profession, we often say “yes” to new roles and responsibilities to serve our patients and elevate our standing in the organization. While this is a commendable effort, the result is an unfortunate and troubling imbalance between resources and workload. Add in the continued workforce shortages for nurses, physicians, technical staff and others, and we see roles continuing to blur as the patient care needs remain constant. This is why the healthcare workforce remains a top concern of healthcare C-suites nationwide.

Reframing Practice Advancement

In 2023, pharmacy workforce efforts focused on essentials: prioritizing workforce mental health and well-being, enhancing compensation, and expanding flexibility through work-from-home or hybrid models. In 2024, pharmacy workforce efforts will need to include new approaches to employee career paths (such as latticed career ladders), refine core services in inpatient practice, and identify new opportunities for service line expansion.

Winning in Inpatient Settings

The nursing shortage provides a unique opportunity for pharmacy to expand its interdisciplinary role. Technicians are the backbone of any successful pharmacy department. Combining new roles with a formalized career lattice and compensation growth is key to addressing pharmacy technician shortage concerns and becoming an employer of choice for both pharmacists and pharmacy technicians. Determining the necessary resources to fill gaps requires a comprehensive assessment of the pharmacy infrastructure, including:

• Organizational expectations: What core services does pharmacy add value to within the team? What is the focus right now, pharmacy operational efficiency or operational excellence?
• Pharmacy resources: Are there enough resources to support the current and anticipated workload based on the functions pharmacy fulfills within the organization? Where can technicians take new roles, from pharmacists to advanced technicians and pharmacist practice?
• Staff competency: How equipped are staff to flex into new roles to mitigate turnover gaps?
• Practice advancement: What inherited tasks no longer add enough value to continue? What would a new model of care look like that matched current – not past – organizational needs?

Through reevaluation, leaders can identify core pharmacist activities, outdated tasks, and roles that can be performed equally by a lower-level skill mix. This can bring supply and demand back into balance and drive top-of-license practice, even with the opportunities presented in the outpatient setting.

Winning in Outpatient Settings

Nationwide, retail pharmacy walkouts spotlight pharmacy workforce concerns and catch the public’s attention. Some retail chains have filed for bankruptcy. Others have been forced to reduce hours. As advocacy for safe working conditions unfolds in the face of challenging economic realities, patient safety and medication adherence hang in the balance.

Health system pharmacies have a unique opportunity to expand their ambulatory pharmacy footprint to meet community needs. Access to the medical record better equips pharmacists to practice at the highest level, positively impacting population health through transitions of care and chronic disease management services. Health system pharmacy leaders must move away from corporate dispensing metrics to focus on patient-specific outcomes while integrating health system and community/retail pharmacy practice. A model focused on patient-centered services and real-time interprofessional decision-making can drive the innovation needed within the community/retail pharmacy sector while generating new revenue opportunities.

Key Takeaways

To optimize and adapt to meet the needs of patients in 2024, workforce and practice development should include:

• Reassess the pharmacy scope of services, infrastructure, practice models, and workflows to reduce turnover and create a more sustainable workplace that appeals to the new generation of clinical pharmacists.
• Technician career advancement, with a focus on specialization and increased clinical responsibilities, to prevent future healthcare shortages and supplement pharmacist capacity. Read more here about the technician shortage and possible solutions.
• Broaden health-system ambulatory and in-home pharmacy presence to create a sustainable model that utilizes medical record integration to drive collaboration and enhance patient outcomes.

To learn more, read our full summary of the top 10 issues facing health system pharmacy in 2024.

Here at Visante, we help health systems accelerate strong financial and operational performance through pharmacy. Our team’s deep expertise and innovative approach can help you optimize your fully integrated health system pharmacy program. Contact us to discuss how we can meet your unique needs by email solutions@visante.com or calling (866) 388-7583 to speak to one of our team members.