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Welcome to the AJP podcast,
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a podcast for pharmacists by pharmacists where we discuss current events,
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relevant topics, and emerging issues. I'm your host, Carlene McMaugh,
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and together with the AJP,
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I'm bringing you the opinions and expertise of different pharmacists to discuss
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their views and insights on topics relevant to pharmacists.
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Please like and rate each episode and subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss
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an episode.
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So is it okay to do your introduction please?
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So, hi everyone, my name is Kristina Fox.
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I am a community pharmacist and a pharmacy owner who owns Complete Care Pharmacy
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in Rosny Park, in Hobart, in Tasmania.
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And we have completely transformed our pharmacy over the last couple of years to
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become a professional service health destination.
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And we have a completely different layout.
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We've got technology that overlays that layout and facilitates having
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pharmacists on the floor at all times maximizing the impact that they can have
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with their patients.
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I'm really proud of the model that we've created and I can't wait to have a chat
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to you about it today. Carlene.
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Thank you so much.
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Can I find out your views on what the challenges or the problems are with the
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current traditional community pharmacy model?
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Yeah, absolutely.
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So I've been a community pharmacist now for about 14 or 15 years,
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and I've been working in community pharmacies for over 20 years,
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and I think we face lots of challenges at the moment,
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but the biggest challenge I find is that pharmacists are wanting to do so much
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more. So we're wanting to do more than just checking prescriptions,
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but our current environment doesn't really enable us to do so.
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So I find that our layouts haven't really changed.
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Nobody's really looked at the way that a pharmacy's laid out and gone,
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oh my gosh, why do we do all of this work all around our dispensaries?
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And we have all these people working in such a small cramped little space trying
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to provide counseling to patients.
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I think one of the challenges is our current environment that we work in.
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Another challenge is that our technology,
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whilst there has been some improvements in the technology space,
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we haven't really got any enablers to let us work more efficiently and
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effectively.
And then also pharmacies don't really have any
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private spaces for patients either.
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So I think that's a big challenge is that we're wanting to do more,
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but we're trying to do it at a shop counter.
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So that's not ideal at the moment.
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I guess one of the other challenges that we face is that patients are now
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consuming their information differently and a lot of people are accessing
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information online and that's probably not the
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best way to access information.
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But also there's so many products now that are available in supermarkets,
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so that's another challenge that we face in the industry.
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Can you please tell me some of the biggest challenges with the current layout of
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community pharmacies?
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Yeah, so I sort of touched on that just before,
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but I guess one of the biggest challenges is that patient walks into a pharmacy,
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they bee-line straight for the dispensary where they want to hand in their
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prescription,
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and so they hand it into a shop assistant and then it goes into the
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dispensary and then people all crowd around the dispensary counter,
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and then pharmacists are wanting to hand out prescriptions at the scripts out
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counter.
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But the issue is that then there's all these other patients waiting for their
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prescriptions in that area and they're overhearing all of those private and
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intimate conversations.
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And so it's just you go to the doctor and you have an
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appointment with the GP and it's in a room and it's very professional and
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it's private and you're talking about sensitive health information.
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And then we as pharmacists want to talk in our communities at counters and it
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just doesn't work very well.
So you've got all this hub of activity in one
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really small space and it makes it really difficult to be productive and
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effective at our jobs. So I think that's a big challenge.
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And then you've got other people presenting for all the different things that
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they might present to a Scripps encounter to say that they're here for an
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appointment for a vaccination or that they want to
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access a prescription that was faxed to the pharmacy.
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Just the way that we're set up now makes it chaotic in community
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pharmacy.
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And I've walked into lots of pharmacies recently and pharmacies that aren't
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doing large script volumes, but it's just feel like it's chaos.
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And I feel like a lot of that is owing to the way that our pharmacies were set
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out and how have we morphed into the way that we practise now.
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It's really just morphed into that over time,
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and we've tacked on a clinic room here and a clinic room there,
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but just adding something doesn't necessarily solve the problem,
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if that makes sense.
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Very true, very true.
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Can I ask you about your point of difference,
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I guess your point of difference for Complete Care Pharmacy where you're looking
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at community pharmacy?
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Okay, so for those that are listening today,
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probably wondering what's the difference between Complete Care Pharmacy and any
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other pharmacy? So we were a Terry White ChemMart actually,
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when we decided to make the change to Complete Care Pharmacy and Complete Care
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Pharmacies is now become a franchise and there's quite a few of them popping up
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across Tasmania, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland,
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which is really exciting, but the model is radically different.
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So when you walk through the door, you don't see a sign that says scripts in,
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you see a sign that says 'Care starts here' because we want pharmacies to become
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known for so much more than just prescriptions.
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We want pharmacists to be known as,
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I guess the givers of health advice, which we always have done.
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But so you walk in the door, you see a triage desk,
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so a triage desk is where we can input the patient into our system
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so we can input lots of different things.
We can input appointment types,
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we can input a minor query,
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we can input any consultation with any type of prescription.
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And then at that point when you walk into the pharmacy,
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you'll see that you can't actually visually see a dispensary.
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So actually the dispensary is sort of hidden away
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out of the sight of the patient.
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So that can become the hub of where all the dispensing gets done.
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And then there's also little pods,
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which are basically tiny little consult rooms,
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much smaller than a traditional bigger clinic room,
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but they have a chute for dispensing robots so that the pharmacist can take the
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patient there and directly dispense with the patient.
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So Complete Care Pharmacy's point of difference is that you've got a triage
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area,
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you've got these little pods that medication can be dispensed with the patient,
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and then you've got a production area.
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There's also other little areas of check-in.
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So we have self-serve check-in areas,
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and we have pharmacotherapy check-in spaces where patients that are on the
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pharmacotherapy program can enter themselves in.
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And I guess all of this is facilitated by our digital workflow solution called
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Excipient, which we created that overlays this layout.
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It sounds very complicated when I say it out loud,
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but in practice it works really well.
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Because you've mentioned software and I've heard you've come up with your own.
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So very multi-talented come up with your own software.
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How is this different to the other software.
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Systems? Yeah, I think as a pharmacist,
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one of my frustrations has always been that we have all these tabs open in our
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pharmacy. So
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we have a software solution that helps with pharmacotherapy.
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We have a software solution that helps with Webster packing.
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We have something that helps with click and collect orders,
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but nothing that sort of integrates and pulls everything together.
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So it's just like another tab or another thing that we have to do as
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pharmacists. So the software we've created is called Excipient,
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and I must disclose,
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I'm definitely not the person that wrote the code because I'm pharmacist not in
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that space, but I know what pharmacists want.
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And so if I could have mapped out exactly what we needed to
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tie everything together, that's what we've done. So essentially what it is,
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it's a way to triage a patient in whether they are walking into the
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pharmacy, ringing up, having a phone call, tapping through an order,
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and then creating a digital basket with that patient that can be seen from
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anywhere within the store.
Now that sounds pretty crazy,
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but let's just give you a real life example.
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So the patient walks into the pharmacy,
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they're greeted by a pharmacist on the floor at the triage area
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or a pharmacy assistant. It really doesn't matter who it is.
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And you ask the patient, what are you here for today? And they say, oh,
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I've got a prescription on my phone, I've got a digital script.
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I also have some scripts I want to grab that I keep on file.
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So Excipient means that you can basically log in.
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This is in the middle of the pharmacy. It could be anywhere in the pharmacy,
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but specifically in complete care out a triage desk,
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we can look up the patient's script on file and scan in their digital script and
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create a basket with that patient. You can add in multiple patients,
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so you could add in mom, dad, grandma,
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you can add in a consultation type.
So they might say, oh, so why I'm here?
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I want to grab a vaccine so you can create a digital basket.
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Now at the point in creating the digital basket, we always said to patient,
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are you waiting or calling back?
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So we can indicate if they're waiting or calling back.
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And if they're calling back,
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we can actually automate an SMS to them when their prescription is ready.
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We can see real wait times with Excipients,
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so it lets you know what's in the system and we can tell the patient there's a
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five minute wait or a 10 minute wait currently,
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which allows them to make a decision.
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And then once we create a digital basket with them,
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it fully integrates with Fred Dispense Plus.
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And so that basket goes into the dispensing program and it queues up the
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patient's basket electronically in order of the priority that the patient's
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there.
So you might have three patients waiting for prescriptions and they're
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all timestamped,
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and so it has all of the work that's in the pharmacy in the order that it's due
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to be done in, which sounds like, oh, Kristina, why is that helpful?
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It's helpful because we have all these inputs into our dispensaries from
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multiple different sources.
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So from click and collect from that patient walking in,
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adding in a prescription in the pharmacy to, I dunno,
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a prescription being emailed through.
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And we want to be able to order all of the work that we have to do so that it
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takes away all of that effort that we have to go to every day going,
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is that a waiter? Are they calling back? Who's next?
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So I can have three or four dispense techs working on baskets and everything is
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queued up according to the priority that they need to work on it.
So if
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someone's calling back in 15 minutes and then all of a sudden 13 minutes has
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elapsed,
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that person's basket goes to the top because you don't want them to come back
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and their order not be ready. It's very hard to explain over a podcast.
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In fact,
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I feel that a lot of people don't really quite understand it until they come and
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visit the store and see how easy it is to use.
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So we wanted to make sure that the software was really simple, really easy,
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faster than what we're currently doing because you don't want to do something if
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it's going to make the process more cumbersome. So it's way faster,
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but also the one benefit is that it splits the baskets into where they need to
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go.
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So what I mean by that is if the person's coming into the pharmacy and they're
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asking to add that digital script and that script on file and they've had it
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plenty of times before, they don't need any intervention from the pharmacist,
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it goes into that production area that I spoke to you about at the start,
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which is where our dispen techs do all of the dispensing.
But if for example,
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they come into the pharmacy and it's a new medication or they have a question
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for the pharmacist,
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it actually queues up the work for the pod pharmacist and then the pod
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pharmacist can call the patient in and they see their queue of work.
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So it kind of splits all the baskets up and sends it to the appropriate person
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at the pharmacy so that you can become more efficient. Does that make sense?
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But it's easy to use that promise.
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So currently, so with the current model,
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advice is given usually at the desk and then you use a consultation room to do
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extra services like vaccinations, things like that.
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But you use for consultation rooms to provide lots of other services and allied
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health, and I even heard about a lactation nurse.
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So can you tell me a little bit about the other services that you have and how
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you utilize those rooms?
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And then I guess I'd probably want to ask about remuneration and how you make
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sure that the patients see value in it and want to invest money
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into the services.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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So we've got essentially these three pods in our pharmacy that are directly
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connected to our robot where these are the rooms that our pharmacists
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predominantly use. So yes, we do do vaccinations and things,
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but actually one thing that's quite different is we have all of our health
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conversations in those pods, so we don't talk about anything on the shop floor.
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So for example, if a patient walks into the pharmacy and says,
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my son is struggling with constipation,
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pharmacy system will add that as a basket and the pharmacist will call the
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patient into the room,
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they'll do a consultation with that patient and they will write out a
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pharmacist prescription pad with recommendations.
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And it's very different having a consultation for health like that for a minor
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ailment in a pod opposed to doing it in the middle of the pharmacy in front of
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the product.
When you're in front of the product and you're recommending for
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somebody, it almost feels like you're selling to them, if that makes sense.
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When you're in the pod and you're listening to their symptoms and then you're
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addressing their symptoms and you're providing health solutions in the room,
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it feels completely different and patients see value in that.
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So when you talk about what's our remuneration like in that situation,
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people are asking us all the time, what do I owe you for that?
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Because they see that advice that we've traditionally always given a counter in
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front of the product as a really valuable thing to them,
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and they're always asking me to pay.
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We're starting to charge for some of our minor ailment consultations,
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so we'll charge $15 for a wound care consultation, for example.
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We'll charge for, say for example,
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we might give advice about plant-based medicine and we recommend particular
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terpenes or something like that.
We will charge for that consultation.
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So it's a lot easier to charge the patient for health advice when you're doing
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it in a really clinical setting. So our pharmacists use those pods,
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but then you're right, we also do have two larger clinic rooms necessarily,
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well, they're not connected to our robot,
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but we do have allied health professionals working in them.
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So we have a full-time nurse practitioner in our pharmacy as well as lactation
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consultants that help I guess new moms or moms to be with
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feeding issues.
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We've got a continence nurse that works in the pharmacy and we also have a
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diabetes educator.
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But what we found is that we had all of these services in our old model,
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but what we found was that whilst I love collaborating with allied health
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professionals, it can become quite laborious when you have to,
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the patient walks in and says that they've got an appointment and you know that
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the nurse practitioner's someone with them and you have to say, wait,
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she's got someone with her take a seat.
So your staff end up doing a lot of the
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reception work when you're hosting allied health professionals in your clinic
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rooms with Excipient, which is our software, the patient comes in,
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they go to that triage area, we can create an appointment with them,
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and then that appointment goes again into that room with that Allied Health
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Professional.
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Mrs. Jones is here for her appointment with the nurse practitioner at 1:00 PM
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and that person in that room can see what all her body of work is,
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and she can then call out the next patient into her room.
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We are able to use that to communicate notes to them in there.
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So we don't actually use sticky notes or handwritten notes in our pharmacy at
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all Now. We use it all electronically through Excipient, but essentially, yeah,
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I hope that answers the question.
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We do so much in the rooms and we look for gaps in our community.
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So essentially what is it that our community needs?
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And lactation consultants was one of those examples.
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So obviously you would've invested a lot into the layout and
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the structure of the pharmacy, not knowing at the time,
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I guess if it would've paid off and if people would've seen value in it.
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So you would've taken a huge risk in the beginning.
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Yeah, no, absolutely. It was a huge risk and my business partner, Julie and I,
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we were quite worried when we were planning it out because it is very different
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and community pharmacy has been practising the same way for such a long time.
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And so patients are used to making that bee-line for the dispensary that
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script's in sign. And so we were actually very anxious about it,
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and I remember we said to each other,
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we'll work every hour that we're open for the first few weeks to see how it goes
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and make sure patients are okay.
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And what we found was it took a lot less time than what we thought for people to
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be okay with a new model. They were okay with it from day one,
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and patients are constantly thanking us for this model,
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and we get so much more out of,
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I guess the interactions that we have with the patients because of the way that
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the pharmacy is operating now.
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So patients don't get a lot of time with their GPS anymore.
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They want to speak to the pharmacist,
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but pharmacists don't know how they can spend time on the floor interacting with
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patients during the day because they've always had to be the ones to check the
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prescriptions.
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So the way that we've been able to address this with our model is that we have a
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pharmacist who works in that production space, that checking space,
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and they stay there for that day.
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So they answer the questions on the phone for the pharmacist,
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they check the prescriptions, they check the Webster packs,
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and they keep the hub of the bulk of the dispensary going and the dispen
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text to all the dispensing, and then that allows us to push pharmacists.
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So we have two pharmacists working on our shop floor doing consultations all
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day. So whilst it was scary doing something different and new,
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I think that if you're always focused on health outcomes for your patients,
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then it's going to pay off for you because people see the value in it.
And
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I'm really proud of our team for embracing it,
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but it has been actually a very easy transition,
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much easier than I thought because it's made the software and the layout and the
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changes made us more efficient.
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We actually felt after a few weeks of being open that we've made a big mistake
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because the pharmacy felt a lot quieter. But in fact, since we've been open,
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we've had 20,
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about 20 to 25% growth in customer numbers had huge
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growth in our script numbers.
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Our gross profits up about 35% on what it was year
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before, so we're much busier.
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Our actual services income has gone up over 60% since we
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opened, and so we're way busier than we were,
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but we are actually way more efficient and we have more time with our
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patients, which is pretty exciting.
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How long has this model been in place?
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So we opened on the 4th of September, 2023,
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so it's almost been a year since we've been opened,
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and we've been deploying changes to our software every fortnight since
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we've been open. So it's become more sophisticated,
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more integrated with the clinical things that we're doing in pharmacy.
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We see it as a platform to enable us to practice to our full scope as well,
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so we can utilize it. For example,
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as soon as Tasmania was able to do urinary tract infection consultations,
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we just added a button on triage, and now if a patient comes in for a UTI,
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the pharmacy system or pharmacist can just click on that button,
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you take the patient in, you can do the consultation in the pod,
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go through all the questions, dispense the medication, do the counseling,
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and away you go all in one hit. It's good.
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It's exciting.
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So I guess I'd ask, what are your hopes for your current model?
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Since you are almost a year in and it sounds like you're constantly
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adjusting things and tailoring them, which is great.
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So what do you hope it will look like in the next couple of years?
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Yeah,
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so I think the hope for Complete Care Pharmacy is I'd love to see Complete Care
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Pharmacies opening up all around Australia,
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and the reason being is it's been so impactful on the health of our local
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community that I'd love to see other pharmacists embracing and adopting these
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change so that they can do more for their communities as well.
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My hope is that this model is,
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I guess a disruptor in the industry.
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The last disruptor that we've had was Chemist Warehouse,
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and that's driven a low service, high volume model in my opinion.
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I think it's about time that we flip things upside down and we go,
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we want to prove that pharmacists are integral to the healthcare system.
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We can help.
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We've got a healthcare crisis at the moment where patients either don't have a
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GP or they can't get timely access to their gp.
So
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the hope is that there complete care pharmacy out there which can fill that gap
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in the healthcare system.
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So in every complete care pharmacy we will have will be registered NDIS
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agencies, which is helpful for communities.
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We'll all have access to a nurse practitioner for every hour that the pharmacy
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is open,
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which is also amazing for patients and we'll be operating in this manner.
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My hope for the future is also that we'll continue to innovate and evolve this
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model. So what it is right now is sort of the base level entry,
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which by the way, we think is pretty good,
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but we want it to always be evolving and getting better.
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So this is what we're doing now,
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but come and look at what we're doing in six months time in another 12 months
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time, another 18 months time,
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and we hope that we can be leading the way in the pharmacy industry.
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We're definitely not scared of change,
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and we think that the way that we've got it set up now allows us to integrate
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and add anything that we need to on for our patients, which is exciting.
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I hope that explained it. Okay. It.
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Did. I was also interested your pharmacy assistants training,
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because obviously they're performing to a standard that is probably
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higher than other pharmacy technicians. So what does their training look like?
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00:22:08.710 --> 00:22:12.790
Yeah, so with Complete Care, it definitely involves,
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00:22:12.820 --> 00:22:16.090
so we didn't have to employ any new staff when we moved to this model,
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but everybody changed their role, if that makes sense.
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So the training for the pharmacy assistants is a lot of
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upskilling of pharmacy assistants to become dispense techs because in this model
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we have our dispense techs processing all of the prescriptions.
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We think that's outside of being with in the pods because our pharmacists do
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dispensing the pods. But in our production area,
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it's a dispensed text and we think that pharmacists are sometimes a wasted
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resource being in the dispensary,
400
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just typing away at the computer and printing out labels.
401
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So we are upskilling our pharmacy assistants to do more teching roles.
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Our techs are also being upskilled to do other things like compounding.
403
00:22:58.150 --> 00:23:01.360
So we are a compounding pharmacy and our dispense techs do all of the
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00:23:01.360 --> 00:23:03.550
compounding.
It's not done by a pharmacist,
405
00:23:03.550 --> 00:23:07.030
obviously everything's checked by a pharmacist, but the tech does that.
406
00:23:07.390 --> 00:23:09.820
They run the packing area of the pharmacy.
407
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They do all of our claiming, they differ in our prescriptions,
408
00:23:14.020 --> 00:23:15.040
they go through the email.
409
00:23:15.040 --> 00:23:19.360
So they do a lot of the jobs that previously our pharmacists were doing that
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pharmacists don't add value by doing that.
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They add value by having one-on-one consultations with patients and providing
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health advice. So that's what we did.
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We've also upskilled our pharmacy assistance through NDIS training.
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So what that means is that we can provide patients with
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medication packing on the NDIS consumables on the NDIS.
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We can do things like anything that's a private prescription.
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We actually do a lot medicinal cannabis and compounding on the NDIS,
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so upskilling our pharmacy assistants in creating service agreements with
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patients and looking for ways to assist them in that space.
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So yeah, definitely a change in roles has been what we did.
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And that's probably been one of the biggest changes for I guess our pharmacy
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staff is yes, there was a difference in the layout and a process,
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but it's a way to handle the patient.
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So no longer are our pharmacy assistants going through all of the questions with
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the patient when they walk through the door,
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which I know that's quite different to the way we've been doing things in a
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pharmacy for a long time,
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but we feel as though the way that we were doing that previously meant that we
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were double handling everything.
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What I mean by that is if the patient came in and requested something for
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thrush, for example,
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and a pharmacy assistant goes through all the questioning and then they have to
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go and relay it to the pharmacist who's standing in the dispensary,
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and then the pharmacist comes out and asks the questions again,
435
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it takes twice as long and the patient gets frustrated because they ask the
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questions twice.
So now when they come in for something,
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our pharmacy assistant will triage them in, create a digital basket,
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and then the pharmacist will see that the patient's there for thrush.
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They'll call the patient into the pod, they'll do a consultation,
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00:24:58.460 --> 00:25:01.580
write out a pharmacist's prescription pad for them and then go and grab the
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products for them and away we go.
442
00:25:04.340 --> 00:25:07.850
So it's a lot more efficient and it provides much better outcomes.
443
00:25:08.390 --> 00:25:11.510
Our basket size, for example,
444
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from a business perspective,
445
00:25:13.490 --> 00:25:18.110
has gone from less than $10 to over $20 OTC
446
00:25:18.410 --> 00:25:19.370
in this model,
447
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and it's been very easy to achieve that because patients are genuinely,
448
00:25:24.350 --> 00:25:29.330
they just want help and pharmacists are there perfect people to provide that
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help and advice.
450
00:25:32.720 --> 00:25:37.160
I thought I'd ask with the announcement of the 8CPA and with the discussions
451
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about scope of practice,
452
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how do you see integrating those to better utilize your model and
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take of those.
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Opportunities?
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I think the better question I think is if you aren't set up like
456
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we are now,
457
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how the hell is your pharmacy going to do full scope? That's my question.
458
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So I genuinely don't know how a pharmacy will efficiently
459
00:26:03.920 --> 00:26:07.280
integrate full scope into their practice without something like complete care.
460
00:26:07.820 --> 00:26:11.360
So I think about the patient journey,
461
00:26:11.480 --> 00:26:14.720
they walk into the pharmacy. Number one,
462
00:26:15.800 --> 00:26:19.220
patients don't know what pharmacists can do already. Number two,
463
00:26:19.220 --> 00:26:21.350
pharmacists are going to be able to do a lot more,
464
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but if you've got pharmacists standing in a dispensary,
465
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checking prescriptions and having their workflow interrupted by
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00:26:29.690 --> 00:26:33.110
pharmacy assistant saying, oh, this person's here for a consult for a UTI,
467
00:26:33.620 --> 00:26:36.680
and then having to go into a room that's not connected to a dispensary,
468
00:26:36.680 --> 00:26:40.430
do a consultation and then head back to the dispensary to dispense medication,
469
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that sounds very inefficient to me.
So the way our model works is that the
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patient will present, they'll be triaged in for their health need,
471
00:26:49.140 --> 00:26:52.530
and then they will be added to the queue for the relevant person,
472
00:26:52.530 --> 00:26:55.980
and then they can go in and do the full consultation dispensing everything
473
00:26:55.980 --> 00:26:59.640
within a pod. I think it'll be seamless. Well,
474
00:26:59.640 --> 00:27:01.320
it is seamless for us already.
475
00:27:01.440 --> 00:27:05.070
So I'm actually really excited for what 8CPA is going to bring to community
476
00:27:05.070 --> 00:27:05.903
pharmacy.
477
00:27:06.090 --> 00:27:10.350
And I just think that we need something like Excipient and Complete Care to be
478
00:27:10.350 --> 00:27:14.070
able to facilitate that easily for pharmacists because pharmacists want to do
479
00:27:14.130 --> 00:27:16.800
like oh, far out, we want to do more to help the system.
480
00:27:17.370 --> 00:27:19.200
But a lot of pharmacists that I speak to,
481
00:27:19.200 --> 00:27:23.730
I just already bogged down in the day-to-day operations and running of their
482
00:27:23.730 --> 00:27:27.510
business and their pharmacies that they don't know how they can possibly do
483
00:27:27.510 --> 00:27:31.470
more. So hopefully we've got a good solution for pharmacists out there.
484
00:27:32.850 --> 00:27:35.850
So you've mentioned franchising and going across, sorry,
485
00:27:35.850 --> 00:27:40.620
I guess I'd ask how are pharmacists getting in contact with you in case other
486
00:27:40.620 --> 00:27:42.990
pharmacists want to, and with the franchising,
487
00:27:42.990 --> 00:27:47.730
does that mean that you obviously have a system in place so that
488
00:27:47.730 --> 00:27:52.320
everybody can roll it out to have some consistency and I guess a way to
489
00:27:52.380 --> 00:27:54.360
monitor efficiency and effectiveness?
490
00:27:55.380 --> 00:27:59.670
So we've got an amazing team behind us at Complete Care Pharmacies.
491
00:27:59.940 --> 00:28:02.790
So we've been building this franchise model for a couple of years now,
492
00:28:03.060 --> 00:28:06.480
and we wanted to make sure that we had the right team behind us.
493
00:28:06.930 --> 00:28:10.290
We wanted to make sure that we've got business development managers that can
494
00:28:10.290 --> 00:28:12.360
check in with the stores regularly.
495
00:28:12.540 --> 00:28:15.750
We've got pharmacists who are training our pharmacists within the pods.
496
00:28:16.020 --> 00:28:18.600
We wanted to make sure we even have pharmacy assistant teams that are training
497
00:28:18.600 --> 00:28:22.800
our pharmacy assistants. Big training is a big part of it,
498
00:28:23.970 --> 00:28:28.350
innovation, and we want to continually evolve the model.
499
00:28:30.270 --> 00:28:33.600
And that's really important because that's what we wanted to achieve with
500
00:28:33.600 --> 00:28:36.480
Complete Care Pharmacies. If you walk into my pharmacy in Hobart,
501
00:28:36.690 --> 00:28:39.840
you get the exact same experience as when you walk into one in Queensland or New
502
00:28:39.840 --> 00:28:40.673
South Wales.
503
00:28:40.920 --> 00:28:45.720
So I'm really proud to say that Complete Care Pharmacy is not a brand that's
504
00:28:45.720 --> 00:28:47.550
necessarily aligned with a wholesaler,
505
00:28:47.880 --> 00:28:52.200
but it's actually a brand that's created by pharmacists for pharmacists and has
506
00:28:52.200 --> 00:28:53.970
an amazing team behind it.
507
00:28:56.100 --> 00:29:00.780
So I guess I'd ask, well, I've asked you most of my questions.
508
00:29:01.620 --> 00:29:04.950
I thought I'd ask you if there's anything I haven't asked you that you wanted to
509
00:29:04.990 --> 00:29:05.823
share.
510
00:29:07.260 --> 00:29:10.210
Trying to think. Look, I
511
00:29:12.450 --> 00:29:13.440
think I'm just,
512
00:29:14.400 --> 00:29:17.310
I'd love people to get in touch with me if they want to know more,
513
00:29:17.310 --> 00:29:18.780
and I've mentioned that before.
514
00:29:19.050 --> 00:29:23.790
I think I'm most proud of the way that Excipient integrates with what we've got.
515
00:29:26.610 --> 00:29:29.760
I think it's hard to explain over a podcast,
516
00:29:29.760 --> 00:29:32.730
but I'd love people to get in touch so that they can find out more about that as
517
00:29:32.730 --> 00:29:35.490
well. And I think we've covered most of the points.
518
00:29:35.640 --> 00:29:39.720
Just I could talk about it for a lot longer in a lot more depth as well.
519
00:29:42.940 --> 00:29:45.670
Yeah, because it is interesting. Yeah, you describe it.
520
00:29:45.670 --> 00:29:48.220
I guess sometimes it'd be easy to see a video or something to.
521
00:29:48.220 --> 00:29:49.450
See. Oh, so much easier.
522
00:29:52.270 --> 00:29:54.670
But I guess I would say that if people,
523
00:29:54.700 --> 00:29:59.320
because some people have got shops at the moment and they've got a
524
00:29:59.320 --> 00:30:03.520
certain amount of space that they can utilize and maybe they won't have the
525
00:30:03.520 --> 00:30:06.280
opportunity to do all of the things that you are doing,
526
00:30:06.550 --> 00:30:10.480
but if there was some advice for people that maybe didn't have all the space or
527
00:30:10.480 --> 00:30:13.780
all the capacity, is there somewhere that they could start to make a difference?
528
00:30:14.560 --> 00:30:15.460
Absolutely.
529
00:30:16.240 --> 00:30:20.590
So I think in terms of the space that's required
530
00:30:21.220 --> 00:30:22.600
for this particular model,
531
00:30:22.660 --> 00:30:27.460
I think we've got a store that's coming on board that's 120 metres
532
00:30:27.580 --> 00:30:29.320
squared. I think anything less than that,
533
00:30:29.320 --> 00:30:32.560
you probably wouldn't have the space to do something like this. Also,
534
00:30:32.560 --> 00:30:35.560
there's an investment in automation as well with the robotics.
535
00:30:35.560 --> 00:30:38.080
So that can sometimes be cost prohibitive for people,
536
00:30:38.680 --> 00:30:41.170
but I think that if they want to make a change to the way that they're
537
00:30:41.170 --> 00:30:45.700
practising anyway, and if they don't want to do something like Complete Care,
538
00:30:45.940 --> 00:30:50.290
the best piece of advice I can have is to connect with your local community and
539
00:30:50.290 --> 00:30:51.970
find out what it is that they're needing.
540
00:30:52.780 --> 00:30:57.370
What is it that your local community is after? So the reason,
541
00:30:57.370 --> 00:30:57.910
for example,
542
00:30:57.910 --> 00:31:02.230
that we've decided to integrate nurse practitioners in Complete Care is because
543
00:31:02.590 --> 00:31:05.770
patients were running out of prescriptions and they weren't able to get in to
544
00:31:05.770 --> 00:31:08.290
get repeats from their GP in time,
545
00:31:08.500 --> 00:31:12.910
or they were coming in for something that was very obvious that, for example,
546
00:31:12.910 --> 00:31:15.970
that they might have shingles or that looks like it's an infection that looks
547
00:31:15.970 --> 00:31:19.810
like it's cold sores.
And people were saying, well, that's great,
548
00:31:19.810 --> 00:31:21.370
but I don't have a GP,
549
00:31:21.370 --> 00:31:24.910
so do I need to go to emergency for something that's relatively minor.
550
00:31:25.330 --> 00:31:29.350
And so connecting with a nurse practitioner to be able to facilitate that in our
551
00:31:29.350 --> 00:31:32.680
pharmacy was important to me. So I think looking out for gaps
552
00:31:34.310 --> 00:31:38.470
in your community and then trying to fill those gaps is really important.
553
00:31:39.730 --> 00:31:42.460
They could start by becoming registered with the NDIS.
554
00:31:42.460 --> 00:31:47.410
I think that that has huge opportunity for community pharmacy as
555
00:31:47.410 --> 00:31:50.170
well. So there's lots of different things that they can do,
556
00:31:50.170 --> 00:31:53.110
and I'm actually very happy for people to reach out to me if they want some
557
00:31:53.110 --> 00:31:56.770
inspiration within their business, even if they don't want to do this model.
558
00:31:57.100 --> 00:32:00.430
Because I personally love seeing people's businesses thrive,
559
00:32:01.390 --> 00:32:05.650
and I love seeing people being able to help the patients in their community.
560
00:32:05.650 --> 00:32:08.650
So I'd love them to reach out to me regardless of what they want to do with
561
00:32:08.650 --> 00:32:12.580
their business into the future if they need a little bit of inspiration.
You
562
00:32:12.580 --> 00:32:16.600
might be very busy. I don't mind. I love being busy. I love it. Well,
563
00:32:16.600 --> 00:32:19.120
I love community pharmacy and for me,
564
00:32:19.390 --> 00:32:23.110
a big reason why we did this is that I've been concerned for community
565
00:32:23.110 --> 00:32:24.520
pharmacies longevity.
566
00:32:25.390 --> 00:32:29.170
You can see that patients can access so many things online nowadays.
567
00:32:29.590 --> 00:32:32.380
They can do their shopping for pharmacy online.
568
00:32:33.370 --> 00:32:37.360
I don't know if you've taken a walk down the pharmacy aisle in the supermarket
569
00:32:37.360 --> 00:32:42.080
recently, but there's so many of our products, they're in supermarkets now,
570
00:32:42.140 --> 00:32:45.350
OLS there, Voltaran gels are there.
571
00:32:45.770 --> 00:32:47.630
It's actually quite scary Zyrtec,
572
00:32:47.810 --> 00:32:50.600
it's quite scary to see what's in the supermarket at the moment.
573
00:32:50.990 --> 00:32:54.800
We're one step away from having community pharmacy going into supermarkets,
574
00:32:55.190 --> 00:32:58.550
and we have to demonstrate, I guess,
575
00:32:58.550 --> 00:33:02.630
our wealth of knowledge and demonstrate why it's so important that community
576
00:33:02.630 --> 00:33:04.400
pharmacy exists.
577
00:33:04.760 --> 00:33:08.660
One thing that we've got with Excipient is we've got the ability to measure how
578
00:33:08.660 --> 00:33:12.950
many consultations we do in a day and what type of consultations we do do.
579
00:33:14.330 --> 00:33:16.580
And that has been fascinating.
580
00:33:16.790 --> 00:33:21.110
So on average we're taking in around 250 to
581
00:33:21.110 --> 00:33:25.100
300 consultations a day. So patient consultations a day,
582
00:33:25.550 --> 00:33:29.510
and we can actually see with our metrics exactly what consultation types they
583
00:33:29.510 --> 00:33:32.030
are. So is that minor ailment advice,
584
00:33:32.180 --> 00:33:35.870
what type of minor ailment advice is that for a medical certificate?
585
00:33:35.870 --> 00:33:38.690
Is that for a vaccination, is that for a new medication?
586
00:33:38.960 --> 00:33:40.460
Is that for a packing query?
587
00:33:40.700 --> 00:33:43.490
So we can actually delve down into those sorts of details.
588
00:33:43.730 --> 00:33:47.630
We can see exactly how long that consultation type is. So on average,
589
00:33:47.630 --> 00:33:51.980
actually I asked last week what our average consultation time was,
590
00:33:51.980 --> 00:33:54.620
and it's six and a half minutes per consult at the moment.
591
00:33:54.980 --> 00:33:58.940
And we can also see all of the metrics for how long our prescriptions take.
592
00:33:59.300 --> 00:34:02.720
So I can see how long it is from the point of input at triage to the point that
593
00:34:02.720 --> 00:34:03.380
it comes out.
594
00:34:03.380 --> 00:34:06.650
And at the moment it's six minutes and 25 seconds in our current model.
595
00:34:07.010 --> 00:34:11.330
So being able to use Excipient for that is also
596
00:34:11.450 --> 00:34:12.283
incredible.
597
00:34:13.790 --> 00:34:18.290
Being able to take a patient into the pod and see that it's a new medication and
598
00:34:18.290 --> 00:34:20.720
schedule a follow-up consultation with them,
599
00:34:22.040 --> 00:34:24.290
there's just so much we can do in pharmacy.
600
00:34:24.290 --> 00:34:28.760
We've just never had the ability to do it or to measure it. And so yeah,
601
00:34:29.300 --> 00:34:30.440
love that part of it too.
602
00:34:32.180 --> 00:34:36.350
Oh, look at that. Okay. Very excited.
603
00:34:37.190 --> 00:34:39.980
So I guess, is there anything that I haven't asked you?
604
00:34:39.980 --> 00:34:40.940
I want to make sure that.
605
00:34:40.940 --> 00:34:44.870
Everybody best. Look,
606
00:34:45.440 --> 00:34:49.910
I think you've asked me lots of really good questions today, which I appreciate.
607
00:34:51.470 --> 00:34:55.250
I think our patients that come into us are not coming into us because they're
608
00:34:55.250 --> 00:34:56.720
coming in to buy something fun.
609
00:34:57.170 --> 00:34:59.930
They're coming in because they've got health conditions and those,
610
00:35:00.410 --> 00:35:05.270
whether it's asthma or diabetes or epilepsy or I don't know,
611
00:35:05.930 --> 00:35:07.760
recent cancer diagnosis,
612
00:35:08.210 --> 00:35:11.720
these are all really important to that particular person.
613
00:35:12.320 --> 00:35:15.110
And they're very vulnerable.
614
00:35:15.110 --> 00:35:17.330
They've just often when they come into a pharmacy,
615
00:35:17.330 --> 00:35:20.240
they've had a diagnosis from a doctor or a specialist,
616
00:35:20.330 --> 00:35:23.180
and we're that first point of call to pick up that medication.
617
00:35:23.810 --> 00:35:28.520
And I think we haven't been set up properly
618
00:35:29.060 --> 00:35:31.070
to handle this for patients.
619
00:35:31.580 --> 00:35:36.470
And so what I wanted to mention was even if you don't decide to do a model
620
00:35:36.470 --> 00:35:37.303
like this,
621
00:35:37.470 --> 00:35:41.400
try and set your pharmacy up in a way that enables you to have more private
622
00:35:41.700 --> 00:35:45.240
consultations with patients and try and take them in clinic rooms for counseling
623
00:35:45.240 --> 00:35:49.650
and medication advice because patients really need us as
624
00:35:49.650 --> 00:35:51.270
pharmacists to be there for them,
625
00:35:51.300 --> 00:35:54.450
but they're not going to open up and disclose stuff to you at a counter.
626
00:35:54.810 --> 00:35:56.070
And since we've had our new model,
627
00:35:56.070 --> 00:36:00.300
we've realized how impactful these rooms have been for patients to feel like
628
00:36:00.300 --> 00:36:02.370
they can chat to us.
629
00:36:04.410 --> 00:36:06.150
Probably doesn't make sense what I'm saying,
630
00:36:06.150 --> 00:36:09.570
but I think I'm just trying to say that people that come into our pharmacies,
631
00:36:09.570 --> 00:36:12.390
they're very vulnerable, they need time with pharmacists,
632
00:36:13.800 --> 00:36:17.190
let's try and set up our pharmacy so that we can facilitate that for them.
633
00:36:18.630 --> 00:36:20.640
Yeah, hope that makes sense. It.
634
00:36:21.330 --> 00:36:22.200
Definitely a lot of sense.
635
00:36:23.730 --> 00:36:28.410
And I guess you can obviously see the benefits with the remuneration from the
636
00:36:28.410 --> 00:36:30.270
patients and all the gratitude,
637
00:36:30.480 --> 00:36:34.800
and I'm guessing you stand out completely from all the other
638
00:36:34.800 --> 00:36:37.470
pharmacies because I've seen you've won a number of awards.
639
00:36:37.470 --> 00:36:42.030
So I'd say congratulations to you for winning all those awards.
640
00:36:42.030 --> 00:36:45.690
I dunno if I would've wanted to be your competitor because it sounds like you're
641
00:36:45.690 --> 00:36:46.950
doing a really good job.
642
00:36:47.760 --> 00:36:52.380
So I guess what I'd like to say is as you go on your journey and as you
643
00:36:52.380 --> 00:36:53.820
continue with the franchises,
644
00:36:53.880 --> 00:36:58.380
it would be great still to reach out to you and see how things are
645
00:36:58.620 --> 00:37:02.070
going for you in the future and how the ING going,
646
00:37:02.070 --> 00:37:06.930
because I think it would be great for the audience to kind of hear with a CPA
647
00:37:06.990 --> 00:37:11.250
coming out, so I'll take it a difference. But with a CPA coming out,
648
00:37:11.250 --> 00:37:15.900
I guess people see benefits with compensation and
649
00:37:16.080 --> 00:37:18.270
getting remunerated for some of the things they've done in the past,
650
00:37:18.630 --> 00:37:22.320
but maybe not looking towards the future and how they can better utilize it or
651
00:37:22.320 --> 00:37:26.280
prepare for it now. So I guess that's what my focus was,
652
00:37:26.280 --> 00:37:29.190
was interviewing you so that people could kind of think, well,
653
00:37:29.190 --> 00:37:30.750
all of these opportunities are coming up.
654
00:37:30.750 --> 00:37:35.550
How has someone done it and how can I prepare myself or better put
655
00:37:35.550 --> 00:37:39.900
myself in a position to be able to deliver on these?
So I thought.
656
00:37:41.580 --> 00:37:42.330
Thank you. Thank you.
657
00:37:42.330 --> 00:37:45.570
I think it's good because I think they need to be set up so that they can take
658
00:37:45.570 --> 00:37:50.190
on all these opportunities. Absolutely. Because if you don't make a change now,
659
00:37:50.220 --> 00:37:53.430
even if it's just a change in the way that you process patients when they come
660
00:37:53.430 --> 00:37:57.240
in so that you can push dispense texts to be dispensing more on pharmacists to
661
00:37:57.240 --> 00:38:00.720
be, even if you've got a traditional layout, put your pharmacist set scripts in,
662
00:38:00.720 --> 00:38:04.710
scripts out and have your texts processing the scripts so that you can do more
663
00:38:05.010 --> 00:38:07.890
to your point. But also, we're not as pharmacists.
664
00:38:07.890 --> 00:38:12.690
I don't feel like we're really at the moment taking up the opportunities that we
665
00:38:12.690 --> 00:38:15.720
already have. We call our front of shopping complete care,
666
00:38:15.720 --> 00:38:16.920
our front of practice,
667
00:38:17.340 --> 00:38:22.170
because we have all of these things at our fingertips that form
668
00:38:22.200 --> 00:38:23.400
our practice.
669
00:38:23.910 --> 00:38:28.650
What I'm trying to say is a lot of patients don't already know what
670
00:38:28.650 --> 00:38:29.850
pharmacists can do.
671
00:38:30.210 --> 00:38:33.840
They don't realize that pharmacists can essentially prescribe for
672
00:38:33.840 --> 00:38:34.890
conjunctivitis.
673
00:38:35.140 --> 00:38:38.530
They don't realize that pharmacists can prescribe for head lice or for
674
00:38:38.530 --> 00:38:39.340
constipation.
675
00:38:39.340 --> 00:38:43.960
So these are things that we are already doing now that a lot of us
676
00:38:44.350 --> 00:38:46.420
aren't doing well, in my opinion,
677
00:38:46.450 --> 00:38:49.570
that we could do better and we could capitalize on what we've got at the moment.
678
00:38:49.690 --> 00:38:52.510
And then 8CPA, just the cherry on top,
679
00:38:53.620 --> 00:38:58.480
but you've got to be set up and ready to be able to take those opportunities
680
00:38:58.480 --> 00:39:03.430
and then make the most and maximize those opportunities
681
00:39:03.430 --> 00:39:05.110
basically. Yeah.
682
00:39:07.300 --> 00:39:08.133
Thank you.
683
00:39:09.580 --> 00:39:12.520
We hope you've enjoyed this episode of the AJP podcast.
684
00:39:12.730 --> 00:39:16.060
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685
00:39:16.270 --> 00:39:21.160
please visit the AJP website forum@aj.com au and join the
686
00:39:21.160 --> 00:39:21.993
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687
00:39:22.480 --> 00:39:25.660
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688
00:39:25.660 --> 00:39:30.460
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