URxProbablyRxight
Meds & Counsel without Patience for Patients
Ever heard of Dick’s Last Resort? Never been to the restaurant myself, but I love the concept. It’s like the court jester in medieval times being able to tell the King the harsh truth since everything he said was in—you guessed it—jest. Why has no pharmacy taken up this business practice? If patients expect harsh but fair truth from the pharmacy team, they’ll accept it readily.
Welcome to URxProbablyRxight. The pharmacy of the future where we provide “Meds & Counsel without Patience for Patients.”
Pharmacy Metrics
[Tech]: “Chop, chop, Leslie. Pick up the pace. I would’ve been done 10 minutes ago.”
[Rph]: “We need to get some kind of metrics program. Finally settle all this constant bickering between you two.”
[Tech 2]: “No no no no! You don’t want to go down that road, Roger.”
[Rph]: “Let me guess, Dillon—they used metrics at your previous gig.”
[Tech 2]: “Yup. Every damn thing was about the numbers. You’re not doing enough of this. Taking too much time on that. Gotta work on such and such because you’re in the bottom 25% company-wide. But did we get any accolades if we’re in the top 25%? Hell, no!”
[Rph]: “You’d think just not getting harassed to have to do better would be incentive enough to get in the top quarter.”
[Tech 2]: “Never thought of it like that, but I guess you’re not wrong. So, like, for example, we had an off-site filling location that delivered prescriptions every day.”
[Rph]: “Central Fill.”
[Tech 2]: “Exactly. It ultimately saved a lot of time. Thing was, all those prescriptions—sometimes over 200 a day—still had to be unpacked and hung in will-call.”
[Rph]: “Two hundred we don’t have to fill ourselves—sounds glorious!”
[Tech 2]: “Nobody wanted to put them away, though, because metrics didn’t account for it.”
[Rph]: “Not the greatest planning.”
[Tech 2]: “Everyone was supposed to team up to get it down quick. But usually ended up that one person had to spend, like, 45 minutes doing it all themselves.”
[Rph]: “I see. So according to the metrics, they hadn’t done anything for nearly an hour.”
[Tech 2]: “All that work to help the team, and you got the same amount of credit as you would sitting in the back with your thumb up your ass.”
[Rph]: “So you’re saying we’re stuck listening to Kay and Leslie bicker forever?”
[Tech 2]: “We only need one metric here at ‘You Are Probably Right’: quality of the sarcasm.”
[Rph]: “Not exactly objective, but good enough for me.”