Why ProspeRx!
Stress and Burnout: As pharmacists, we dedicate ourselves to patients and patient care. In an ideal world, we want to treat patients as patients and display care for which we went to pharmacy school and the reason why we chose pharmacy as a profession. The recent pandemic period unearthed so many realities that it’s almost impossible to state in words. A recent article from Washington post sums it up:
Pharmacists say they are burning out because of working conditions - The Washington Post
This article not only describes the tough conditions that pharmacists and pharmacy technicians had to deal with while vaccinating millions of Americans but also raised the following concerns:
- Insufficient trained pharmacy staff
- Inadequate resources
- Overload of tasks and reduced hours
- Lack of quality in patient care
- Inadequate remuneration
- Inadequate recognition despite some efforts from companies
- Despair and burnout
Another article from US Pharmacist talks about burnout and stress in pharmacists:
Pharmacist Burnout and Stress (uspharmacist.com)
Stagnant Careers: Pharmacist is one of the careers that looked like a lucrative one in the beginning but unlike other careers, comes to stagnancy at one point! If we don’t change according to the times, if we don’t adapt to the changing healthcare environment and if we don’t step up to the current educational needs, we will find ourselves behind the race and in despair.
Staying as pharmacists the same way as we have been used to be, does not help. With changing health care models, we need to change too! There are numerous developments that happened in the last couple of decades:
- Invention of Specialty medications
- Home-infusions
- 340B
- Specialty pharmacies- Retail and Health systems
- Ambulatory care- Tying the pharmacists’ led clinics with health systems’ 340 B component.
- Value-based reimbursement models from payors
- P4P- PDC80, DIR
These are some of the several concepts that need to be studied and understood in order to explore newer career opportunities. These newer careers not only offer more quality and rejuvenating passion for patient care, but are also more rewarding than traditional pharmacist roles.
Education Opens Doors: This is why ProspeRx was born! We want to provide that edge to you so you can grow your careers with advanced education. Today, healthcare has evolved! There are a lot of things to know that can change our lives. This evolution in terms of clinical expertise is rarely experienced in a traditional setting. Yes, pharmacies are also trying to educate their staff about these changes but cannot provide the resources in terms of time and opportunities in return. We want to bring that opportunity and rejuvenated experience through our courses! An ongoing survey of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians clearly indicates a need for advanced education in terms of clinical expertise, third-party billing, pre-requisite treatments, prior authorizations and finding copay assistance for patients. Here are the results of the survey:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Y7WqnzPYZDfod0LtmIqPP4GhklmGN86CBbhyUQc_OZU/edit?usp=sharing
Pay attention to the results of the last question: Does your company provide you with ONE such course that covers all of the above aspects? A large majority of 77.6 % answered NO.
Through quality and application-based knowledge, ProspeRx provides a practical solution to pharmacists and pharmacy technicians to perform better at their jobs. With growing clinical knowledge and healthcare knowledge, pharmacists and technicians will be able to navigate career options that can help them overcome burnout and attain job satisfaction.
