Big ideas help kick off ideaShare 2015 with full day of education
SAN DIEGO — McKesson ideaShare 2015 kicked off Wednesday with a full day of continuing education sessions to help independent pharmacists remain at the cutting edge of patient care and pharmacy practice. Over the course of the four-day conference, McKesson will host more than 30 CE sessions, covering such important topics as medication synchronization, marketing in a digital world, building prescriber relationships and much more.
Drug Store News sat in on some of the sessions. Following are some key highlights from Wednesday and Thursday:
Medication Synchronization: Building the Foundation to Maximize Your Pharmacy’s Financial and Clinical Potential
Co-moderators Pam Bernadella, director of training and professional services for Health Mart; John Gregg, director of clinical operations for Health Mart; and Health Mart Pharmacy owner Bob Lomenick of Tyson Drugs discussed the advantages of adopting an appointment-based, medication synchronization program for an independent pharmacy, including improved patient outcomes and prescription growth. The session provided a five-step roadmap on how to implement a successful med sync program in just 90 days. According to a 2013 study published in the Journal of the American Pharmacists Association, patients enrolled in med sync programs had average adherence rates of more than 89% versus 57% adherence among patients not enrolled in med sync. In addition, for every 100 patients enrolled in a med sync program, pharmacies generated about three additional fills per patient, resulting in a $91,140 incremental lift in revenue.
“That’s more than an extra week of sales,” Bernadella said. “The financial benefit is real.”
Why Marketing Matters: Using Proven Strategies to Acquire Patients and Promote Your Pharmacy
Pharmacies that have incorporated medication synchronization into their practice, of course, need to advertise that service. Kevin Joyce, SVP EMG3, talked about how to do that effectively. Joyce laid the foundation for independent pharmacies to construct a comprehensive, affordable and effective marketing program designed both to acquire new patients and help retain existing patients.
Joyce suggested operators start small and be willing to constantly test and tweak the message. Operators should also focus their pitch to a defined patient group, which not only makes the message more effective, but also makes the campaign more affordable, he said. And there should be a specific call to action associated with the campaign, such as an invitation to participate in an event.
Marketing Your Pharmacy in Social Media, Mobile and the Digital World
Among the sessions emphasizing better ways for pharmacy owners to serve their customers, Elizabeth Estes, Ebus Innovation’s chief ideas officer, led a session outlining ways community pharmacies can acquire new customers and convert them into loyal customers through digital marketing.
Estes talked about the importance of mobile-optimized websites, leveraging Facebook marketing to engage the community, how to maintain a consistent digital presence, and how to deal with reviews on social sites like Yelp, and offered a toolkit for how to thrive in a permanently changed landscape.
“The digital experiment we all talked about and thought about four or five years ago is not an experiment — it’s a way of life. And it’s what our patients and what our consumers are doing,” Estes said. “There are a lot of opportunities for you to use these tools to engage your patients and to work with your patients with these tools.”
Seven Deadly Sins of Community Pharmacy
Hamacher Research Group VP Dave Wendland talked about the common mistakes independent pharmacy owners often make that cause them to fail to optimize sales at the front-end of the store. Among the many lost opportunities for increased sales, Wendland pointed to such missed opportunities as poorly used endcaps and merchandise displays, a reliance on traditional media and inconsistent planogram implementation
“There are countless opportunities for independent pharmacies to capture sales that are literally right in front of them, and that is the front of the store,” Wendland told Drug Store News. “Certainly as an industry, we need look no further than what CVS Health announced last week, which is they’re devoting more energies to the front end. Independent pharmacy needs to do the same.”
Positively Impacting Performance Measures One Patient at a Time
Janelle Ruisinger, associate professor at the University of Kansas School of Pharmacy, helped participants parse the different guidelines they could use to determine if a diabetic patient is right for statin therapy, and discussed typical reasons for non-adherence and potential solutions. Ruisinger emphasized that adherence goes hand-in-hand with improved performance on CMS’ Star ratings. Ruisinger quoted the World Health Organization, which calls pharmacists “an important resource for improving adherence to long-term therapy.”
“The WHO recognizes pharmacists as important to helping improve adherence and so hopefully we can step up to that challenge and make big changes and help our patients out there,” Ruisinger said.
20 Great Ideas to Build Relationships with Physicians
One common theme at McKesson ideaShare 2015 revolved around forging stronger relationships — between pharmacies and customers, potential customers, and even prescribers. Marsha Millonig, CEO of Catalyst Enterprises, and Dr. Paul Mulhausen, chief medical officer at Telligen, discussed the potential for collaboration between pharmacies and doctors undergirded by a professional and mutually respectful relationship — what Millonig referred to as a covenant between pharmacist and patient, as well as pharmacist and physician.
Milhausen emphasized the pharmacy’s need to fill a niche in providing care and preventing adverse drug events — special populations like the elderly and those with serious mental illness are examples of these — in a way that adds value to the physician-pharmacist relationship.
“If you can’t bring added value to the collaboration, you will be irrelevant,” Milhausen said, adding that if pharmacies can add value to the relationship, there will be pay off down the road.