Dear Colleague,
A year ago, Tim Mitchell was a pharmacy owner confronting the impact of a pandemic on his local community. He knew he couldn’t lose the momentum his stores had gained as a participant in the Flip the Pharmacy program, and he was looking for a resource that would continue to develop the patient-based services he was offering to his patients that were helping to differentiate him from other pharmacies. Tim is from Missouri, the “Show Me” state, so he wasn’t looking for the view from an ivory tower.
He heard about a new pharmacist fellowship program NCPA was offering from a colleague and decided to get involved. He signed up one of his star pharmacists, Paula Boettler, as a fellow and has been blown away by the effect on his practice. Paula is impressed too. She’s seen changes all around her, adding that the program has inspired her colleagues as well. A significant part of the program’s success, she says, is “encouraging and inspiring other coworkers and staff workers to level up their pharmacy game and increase the clinical services that we offer.”
As the demand for enhanced services in community pharmacy grows, we need more change agents like Tim and Paula in the field. Practice Transformation is a huge component of NCPA’s well-established goal to help Change the Pharmacy Payment Model. That’s one reason why, we kicked off the NCPA Innovation Center/CPESN® Community Pharmacy Fellowship Program last year. The fellowship program allows participants not just to peek behind the curtain but to become full-blown (welcome) voyeurs of the top pharmacies across the nation. Fellows learn how they structure their pharmacy services and receive feedback on how to optimize the services they offer back at their home pharmacies. “Of all the continuing education programs or trainings I’ve done in the past, this has been the most impactful,” Paula says.
Each of the 27 fellows that make up the inaugural class has a similar story. We told you about Dean Stone, owner of IHS Pharmacy, and his fellow, Jessica Latham, in the April issue of America’s Pharmacist®.
Fellows learn in an online community over 12 months. There are three educational experiences fellows participate in:
- They review topics that reinforce the core tenants of CPESN in recorded lectures, then discuss them with pharmacy owner faculty during a live video call.
- They receive feedback on the changes they are implementing in their pharmacies from CPESN luminaries, some of the most successful pharmacy owners in the country, in small breakout discussion groups.
- They work on a capstone project throughout the fellowship year that focuses on an area of service the pharmacy values. And the end of the fellowship year, the fellow submits a “how-to” document. These documents are saved to a library available for future fellows to use when exploring a new service for their pharmacy.
Next Wednesday, June 30, we are hosting a general interest meeting where program leaders and current fellows will share their experiences and answer your questions. Click here to register.
Enrollment is open through July 31 for pharmacy owners who are interested for themselves or one of their staff pharmacists to learn “show me” practice transformation from the some of the top pharmacy owners in the country.
Best,
B. Douglas Hoey, Pharmacist, MBA
NCPA CEO
