Over 100 community pharmacists attended the recent IPU and JPA Brenson Lawlor joint event, entitled Community Pharmacy Briefing — The Way Forward. The event, which was held on 19 April in the Clayton Hotel, Liffey Valley, Dublin, covered a range of topics, from wellbeing and digitalisation, to a summary of Uniphar’s evolution. In this article, Ailbhe O’Briain, the IPU’s Communications and Marketing Manager, provides an overview of the event.
The joint IPU and JPA Brenson Lawlor event on 19 April lived up to its title of providing an overview of the “way forward” for community pharmacy. Under the excellent moderation skills of Conall O’Móráin, host of the That Great Business Show podcast, discussions ranged from protecting the wellbeing of both pharmacists and their staff, through to digital developments that are changing the face of how pharmacies operate. The event provided lots of lively discussion, and much to ponder for the crowd of more than 100 pharmacists in attendance.
The event kicked off with a welcome from representatives of both hosts — Thomas McDonald, a Partner in JPA Brenson Lawlor, and IPU President Dermot Twomey — before the four speakers took to the stage.
Seamus Ruane, a wellbeing practitioner and community pharmacist spoke first on the importance of focussing on our wellbeing, and highlighted the importance of this in our everyday lives. He said we must remember that this includes our working lives, and as he so often does in his IPU Review columns, he urged us all to remember that wellbeing is much more than a tick box exercise. He suggested it is an untapped resource that relates to a sense of meaning and purpose in life. Mr Ruane detailed our two greatest assets in life as being time and energy, yet neither of these appear on our business balance sheets. The greatest asset of any business, Mr Ruane asserts, is its team, which is the face of the business on a day-to-day basis. Wellness in the workplace, he says, should be the most important measurement of our businesses, as it is the best medicine in life — when taken daily, wellness prevents burnout, reduces stress levels and sick days, and, notably, is free of charge.
Oonagh O’Hagan, Managing Director of Meagher’s Pharmacy, spoke on the digitalisation of her pharmacy business during COVID, and her use of social media to engage with consumers. While she spoke in-depth on digitalisation, she also touched on the theme of Seamus Ruane’s previous presentation on wellness and made the interesting observation that we must look at the pharmacist’s role in in supporting patients’ wellness. In this way, rather than only being a destination for times of sickness, we must also always remember the important role pharmacists play in helping people to stay well.
However, Ms O’Hagan’s main discussion points were around digitalisation, and she informed those present that this area of her pharmacy business grew out of necessity during COVID, but has gone from strength-to-strength since then, with over 70 countries now ordering from the Meaghers.ie website. Very beneficially for those present, Ms O’Hagan spoke about her recipe for success in digitalisation, which she defined as having five key pillars:
Ms O’Hagan provided an excellent presentation, as she went through each of these pillars and the approach of her company in introducing the concepts attached to each. She also highlighted the importance of asking customers what they wanted and how you can stand out with a well thought-out, measured approach to digitisation, including the use of social media and other online platforms.
Ms O’Hagan also asked attendees to think about how we measure digital success, and the need to be clear on what you need to measure, which can include: engagement; impressions; clicks; traffic; ROAS (return on advertising spend); and CTA (call to action).
Referencing the Behaviour and Attitudes Sign of the Times 2022 report, Ms O’Hagan highlighted that while consumers prefer to engage face-to-face, and online can seem functional, social media can bridge the gaps. While she highlighted some of the potential challenges from using social media, she also emphasised the opportunities, and said there is definitely a positive role for digitisation.
“Wellness in the workplace, he says, should be the most important measurement of our businesses, as it is the best medicine in life.”
She concluded her presentation by saying that to optimise your results, building an online community is essential, but it must be coupled with sufficient supervision of your brand and management of any agency used.
The next speaker was Prof. Martin Curley, who is currently a Professor of Innovation at Maynooth University, but until January 2023, was the HSE’s Head of Digital Transformation. Prof. Curley has a long career in digital transformation, and obviously knows the Irish system as well as anyone could. He provided an excellent and thought-provoking presentation on how community pharmacy can benefit from digital transformation.
Prof. Curley highlighted that Ireland currently ranks 80th in the world’s healthcare systems, has one of the lowest levels of accessibility, and yet has one of the largest healthcare spends. In his view, the Irish health system is broken, but its problems can be addressed, if it is reimagined and restructured.
Prof. Curley believes a digital transformation is required, and he provided his audience with a clear definition of this: “Digital transformation is a coordinated digital change effort at scale, throughout all aspects of the organisation and ecosystem”.
Prof. Curley provided a quote he used while at the HSE, where he said: “We propose a healthcare system that is mainly home and community-based, it is proactive, predictive, mobile and cloud-enabled, as well as open-source, where possible.”
Echoing what Mr Ruane and Ms O’Hagan had previously touched on, Prof. Curley emphasised wellness and the need to restructure the health service around wellness, given the old adage that ‘prevention is always better than cure’. Prof. Curley said that digital transformation was an opportunity for pharmacy, and that the concept of ‘Pharmacy First’ would provide an opportunity to completely rearchitect our health system “around wellness and the patient”. This would allow pharmacists to operate to their full scope of practice, provide motivating careers for pharmacists, leverage consulting rooms, and grow revenue and footfall. He suggested introducing an ‘NCT’ type health check for all patients, from which patients would have their results when leaving their pharmacy. He said this could be done for little more than the cost of a cup of coffee, and would allow people to leave their pharmacy with actionable insights, a personal electronic health record, a fitness device and a strengthened relationship with their community pharmacists.
Prof. Curley closed his presentation by saying that while Ireland is currently bottom of the pile in terms of healthcare systems in OECD countries, we can jump ahead by moving away from paper-based systems to new electronic records and developing a homecare system supported by pharmacy. With these changes in place, he believes we can move from languishing at the bottom, to moving into the top ten, within five years.
Uniphar’s Supply Chain Lead, David O’Brien provided a history of the company, its three separate divisions, and the ups and downs experienced since its inception in the 1960’s. The organisation is split into three divisions: Commercial and Clinical, which operates in 15 markets across Europe, and enables patients to access treatments across MedTech and Pharma industries; Product Access, which enables equitable access to unlicenced medicines worldwide; and Supply Chain and Retail, which enables the supply of medicines, and health and beauty products, in Ireland.
Mr. O’Brien outlined what he believes to be the principal challenges for community pharmacy:
Uniphar’s retail business is experiencing the same challenges as the rest of community pharmacy. He emphasised the advantage Uniphar has of comprehensive support systems in terms of both infrastructure and people, and the importance of being able to measure what is, and isn’t working, for each store. Mr O’Brien described digital as “a clear lever”, and said Uniphar pharmacies are ready for the future, with investment in new facilities. This is being done by removing remaining inefficiencies, putting in new, and simplifying existing systems, and through support.
He said that delivering significant efficiencies, coupled with the ability to meet future demand, will mean that Uniphar will be in a position to provide a differentiated customer offering that will transform the customer experience. He closed by saying that innovation will allow Uniphar to diversify and build meaningful relationships with their customers.
Following the individual presentations, the four speakers were joined on stage by Dermot Twomey (President, IPU); Jason Bradshaw (Partner, JPA Brenson Lawlor); Jackie Murphy (HR Director, JPA Brenson Lawlor); and Tony O’Brien, (former HSE Director General and currently a Strategic Advisor to the Healthcare sector). This provided for an active questions and answers session, with questions coming from both the MC, Conall O’Móráin, and from the floor. The questions covered a wide range of relevant topics, including the enhanced role of community pharmacists, and the need for a national strategy for pharmacy. Other topics covered included the shortage of pharmacists and how universities could address this issue, along with the shortage of medicines and the need for better communication and sharing of information between key stakeholders.
Finally, the top tips for wellness were requested, and while emphasising that there isn’t one solution, Seamus Ruane wrapped up the discussion by focussing on his three key areas:
Mr Ruane said wellbeing is all about having the vitality and energy to go about your daily business.
Conclusion
Overall, the event was a huge success, with engaging speakers and a robust discussion on topical issues, which was delivered to a large audience of pharmacists from across the country. The IPU would like to sincerely thank our partners for the event, JPA Brenson Lawlor, and we hope to make this an annual meeting in the future.
Ailbhe O’Briain
Communications & Marketing Manager, IPU
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