The IPU Pharmacy Practice Working Group (PPWG) is a group of community pharmacists, pharmacy technicians with an interest in improving pharmacy. In this article, Linda Ahern, Senior Claims Analyst with the IPU, introduces SMART Pharmacy and other work of the PPWG.
There are nearly 2,000 pharmacies across the country of various shapes and sizes; each pharmacy is unique and there is no template for running a pharmacy business. However, the one over-arching commonality is the increasing administrative work. Some tasks are mandated in legislation and regulations; other work is necessary to ensure payment, either private or reimbursement by the PCRS; keeping stock on the shelves is a continuous challenge with the ongoing shortages issues; there are multiple points of entry for prescriptions; and, engagement and interactions with our patients has evolved, especially since the pandemic.
To help introduce efficiencies into your pharmacy practices and offer some kind of reprieve from the administration burden, the IPU is launching SMART Pharmacy.
In project management terms, SMART is a framework for achieving goals or objectives; the word is an acronym, or mnemonic, outlining five essential criteria:
While not quite the same, there is an element of project management with running a community pharmacy. Playing around with the concept and keeping a focus on goals, SMART Pharmacy will provide you with guides and toolkits to help you achieve your objectives, one task at a time.
First up is our delegation toolkit. Having a clear plan of daily, weekly and monthly activities in a community pharmacy is important, it facilitates operational efficiencies and provides a mechanism to delegate duties.
To add structure to this plan, we have developed a task delegation toolkit to organise and plan completion of tasks within the pharmacy. We all love a good checklist, and this checklist has been designed to support you and your pharmacy team. It will facilitate, better communication, clarify responsibilities and accountabilities, and help you better organise the daily, weekly and monthly tasks required within your pharmacy.
The delegation toolkit also aims to free up pharmacists’ time by assigning appropriate tasks to trained pharmacy members. Tasks will be split into two sections: tasks that must be completed by the pharmacist and tasks that may be completed by trained pharmacy team members. This toolkit is currently in the design phase and will be available on the IPU website under the SMART Pharmacy section in two formats — an interactive electronic form (which you can print if you choose to), and a spreadsheet version that you can adapt and tailor for your pharmacy. The plan is to issue a glossy hard copy with the IPU Yearbook & Diary 2024, so if you think of any necessary additions or amendments, please let us know.
Next up, cybersecurity. The security of patient data is a priority for any healthcare provider and has particular importance to community pharmacy and managing pharmacy information systems. To that end, we have updated our information security guidance and developed another handy checklist.
To find the Delegation Toolkit and Cybersecurity Checklist, there is a dedicated section on the IPU website for SMART Pharmacy, simply go to: ipu.ie/smart-pharmacy.
Going forward, look out for top tips in our eNewsletter and monthly articles in the IPU Review. We plan to create information and share it in a medium that works, it could be our trusty checklist but we will also be producing short videos with tips and ideas.
On the website, you will notice other categories which will give you a flavour of guides and tools yet to come. For example, Best Practice will feature advice on PMR functionality and using HSE security certificates, Prescription Management will look at Healthmail and workflow, Dispensing Practice is concerned with dispensing and ideas such as original pack dispensing, while Stock Management will look at the ordering process and other considerations. Other categories include Quality, Record Keeping, Claims Admin and our featured delegation toolkit can be found under Resource Management.
Jonathon Morrisey, Chair of CPC, will officially launch SMART Pharmacy at the IPU Conference on Saturday 21 October, which is another good reason to attend.
The IPU Pharmacy Practice Working Group (PPWG) is a group of community pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, and IPU staff, with big ideas and a bank of quick wins aimed at developing efficiencies in workflow and routine processes.
Its mission is to reduce the use of valuable resources on non-value adding tasks. This will be achieved through promoting efficient work processes, sharing best practice and communication of the same. Identification and prioritisation of the advocacy asks for the organisation in the area of efficient practice. Whilst ensuring that community pharmacy continues to attract the best people who will in turn deliver benefits to the Irish patient and Irish healthcare system.
The vision is to create a platform for continuous improvement that maximises the value of pharmacy to the team, the patient and the healthcare system, so that a career in pharmacy is rewarding and allows us to focus on patient care and on providing valuable healthcare services in the community.
Apart from SMART Pharmacy, other pillars of work for the PPWG will involve gathering evidence, qualitative and quantitative data, through process mapping and studies on activities (especially wasteful) in community pharmacy. The outputs of this evidence gathering, and the material developed under SMART Pharmacy, will be used to lobby at a high-level and to effect change to DoH, PSI, HSE, eHealth and PCRS systems to become more pragmatic for the current pharmacy environment.
If you want to get involved in the PPWG, or you have any tips to share, please contact linda.ahern@ipu.ie.
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