Here's a metaphor to illustrate the insanity of reducing tech hours not because of lowered volume... but lowered profit. This is a simple illustration, but it gets the point across.
Imagine you and I are part of a football franchise. The team has 11 players. The goal, of course, is to win games and fill the stands with people and sell them hot dogs. The more hots dogs we sell, the more money the franchise makes, obviously.
Management isn't happy that the team franchise isn't making as much profit this year. The volume of sales are actually up... we're selling more hot dogs than ever before... but the middlemen handling reimbursement on hot dog sales is taking a bigger cut and therefore profit is down.
To make things worse, management signed an agreement with GoodWeiner (and other discount plans) giving fans a discount on their hot dog purchases... they save a few bucks but the football franchise takes a bit hit with every hot dog sold. They didn't read the fine print and signed the agreement without really thinking about it... you know... besides... the other football franchises were signing agreements too, and be damned if we're going to be left out of that!
Of course the football team itself has nothing to do with the prices of hot dogs. Our training is in football, not sales. Regardless, we football players have no control over the price of the hot dogs on any level anyway! We don't set the retail price, nor do we negotiate the costs involved in purchasing them.
But management, the ones brimming with vast intelligence, tells us that they're going to reduce the number of football players to 10, maybe even 9... until sales and profit of hot dogs sold increases. So to start off, they fire one of the players.
Management isn't happy that the team franchise isn't making as much profit this year. The volume of sales are actually up... we're selling more hot dogs than ever before... but the middlemen handling reimbursement on hot dog sales is taking a bigger cut and therefore profit is down.
Of course the football team itself has nothing to do with the prices of hot dogs. Our training is in football, not sales. Regardless, we football players have no control over the price of the hot dogs on any level anyway! We don't set the retail price, nor do we negotiate the costs involved in purchasing them.
But management, the ones brimming with vast intelligence, tells us that they're going to reduce the number of football players to 10, maybe even 9... until sales and profit of hot dogs sold increases. So to start off, they fire one of the players.
"But how are we supposed to win games with only ten players when the other team has eleven?" we ask.
"Find a way. Once profit is back up you'll get your 11th player back," is what we're told.
(In other words, work harder just to earn the right to have a NORMAL amount of football players to handle the game).
AS RIDICULOUS as this sounds, this is EXACTLY what is going on with Goofmart Pharmacy (and other pharmacies all around the nation) right now! Management expects us to win games with 10 players and fill the stands with hungry hot dog eaters.
In pharmacies all across the nation, pharmacy managers are threatened that unless they get profit up by increasing sales, they will lose tech help. In many cases the workforce has already been cut. In other situations, the workload has increased dramatically yet upper management tells their pharmacy managers that there's no extra tech help to spare. Keep your level of sales the same with what you have.
This metaphor lacks one important aspect crucial to the entire argument. Pharmacy is HEALTH CARE. When you reduce the help needed to run a pharmacy, in essence you're increasing the risk associated with someone on the team making an error... and the potential that a serious, devastating error gets through the system and harms a patient.
In Illinois they're starting to understand the implications of pushing pharmacists and techs too far. They're suggesting some major changes to their pharmacies. See LINK. So Goofmart Authorities, how about we be first on the block to make sweeping changes ourselves?
It's only patient safety at stake, right?
(In other words, work harder just to earn the right to have a NORMAL amount of football players to handle the game).
AS RIDICULOUS as this sounds, this is EXACTLY what is going on with Goofmart Pharmacy (and other pharmacies all around the nation) right now! Management expects us to win games with 10 players and fill the stands with hungry hot dog eaters.
In pharmacies all across the nation, pharmacy managers are threatened that unless they get profit up by increasing sales, they will lose tech help. In many cases the workforce has already been cut. In other situations, the workload has increased dramatically yet upper management tells their pharmacy managers that there's no extra tech help to spare. Keep your level of sales the same with what you have.
This metaphor lacks one important aspect crucial to the entire argument. Pharmacy is HEALTH CARE. When you reduce the help needed to run a pharmacy, in essence you're increasing the risk associated with someone on the team making an error... and the potential that a serious, devastating error gets through the system and harms a patient.
In Illinois they're starting to understand the implications of pushing pharmacists and techs too far. They're suggesting some major changes to their pharmacies. See LINK. So Goofmart Authorities, how about we be first on the block to make sweeping changes ourselves?
It's only patient safety at stake, right?
2 comments:
Yay - I'm glad you got a chance to read the article I sent you! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it works out well for pharmacists/pharmacies. When you guys "win", everyone wins - you have more time and more help, patients are kept safer and happier. The only people who don't win are maybe the people who sleep on beds made of gold. Perhaps they'll have to settle for silver and only 2 vacation homes instead of 3. Oh woe is them...perhaps they ought to feel the real pain for once.
See this all the time in the hospital too, not enough nurses to cover, and then they take our last CNA away because a different floor just had a patient go nuts, so they need a physical body in the room watching him. So nurses are doing what normally takes two aids to do plus our own work. We just hope the night shift ends with no damage, so day shift can take over.
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