New Zealand's Pharmacy Industry has under gone a huge amount of
change in the past 10 years. Remuneration for pharmaceuticals has
been reduced to extremely slim margins, leaving many pharmacies
struggling financially, and forcing pharmacists to look at areas of
their business that can have improved turnover and become more
profitable.
It was against this background that the revolution began in
Stobo's Pharmacy in Oamaru, to win the war against ever reducing
profit margins. Having read the book The Personal Efficiency
Factor by Kerry Gleeson, Jeff Ross, owner of Stobo's set out to
put the principles in place in his pharmacy. Of course, the
principles apply to every business. This article outlines problems
that many businesses face - and how to solve them.
How it works is this - step back from doing everyday repetitive
tasks and see just what it is you spend your time doing, and how you
can put systems in place to reduce repetitive tasks. Let me lead you
through some of the processes we looked at.
- Our first step: Finding a pen when
you need it .
Now this may seem too small to look at, but think about it - how
often do you spend time looking for a pen? In a retail situation,
you could spend up to 30 seconds 10 times a day, that's 3 minutes a
day wasted on looking for a pen. If you have 5 staff all in the same
situation , that's 15 minutes a day and over a week, assuming a five
day working week you collectively spend 1 and a quarter hours -
Multiply that by 52 weeks and you have an incredible total of 65
hours spent looking for a pen.
How much does that pen cost? Remember that
this lost time isn't actually lost using the pen, it's just in looking for it. A
ball point pen will cost around NZ$1 ( just roughly ) , and the
average hourly rate for a staff member in Pharmacy in NZ is around
NZ$10 , so you and your staff have just spent ( in dollar terms )
$650 looking for a pen that will cost you $1 to buy .
So what ?
If you splash out and buy 100 pens , you will still have saved
yourself $550 a year in wasted time, and the time can be put to
better use, increasing productivity, and thereby increasing profits.
Does that seem remarkably simple, or what?
So what did we do ?
The problem was actually two-fold in our workplace - we not only
had staff taking pens home and forgetting to return them, but when
loaning pens to customers in order for them to write checks, or sign
forms there would be the forgetful customer who would slip it into
their pocket or purse and take it away with them.
So, we tackled it two ways - firstly, we gave each of our staff a
pen which was more expensive than your average pen and engraved
their name on it. This added psychological ownership to the pen, and
staff began to find that their pens were returned to them by both
customers and other staff if they found it lying about. Pens began
to run out before they were lost, a situation that hardly ever
happened previously.
The second approach was to tie pens down where they might
reasonably be expected to be needed - next to each till, above the
benches where pharmacists and dispensary technicians needed to write
on prescriptions, in the office on desks- anywhere a pen would be
needed, one was tied down.
Now apply this principle to all the office equipment needed - scissors,
hole punches, paper, paper clips, envelopes, adhesive tape. Any
piece of equipment you have to spend time on a regular basis searching
for, and especially if it's something you look for on a daily basis,
you need to have as part of your basic equipment. And if others
keep coming to you, borrowing and then not returning a particular
item, then they need that item as part of their basic equipment.
Not only does it increase efficiency, but it also reduces frustration.
We also applied this principle to all sources of frustration on a
daily basis - we got rid of our cupboard doors, so we had instant
access to cupboard contents, rather than opening six cupboards
before we found the right one, and we took items regularly used out
of drawers and put them on open shelves for instant access.
- Step two : Workflow patterns
We also looked at the workflow patterns in
our pharmacy, and found that we could conserve time and energy by
streamlining our workflow. In order to do this, there were a number
of critical questions that needed to be answered -
- What steps are involved in producing our
end product? ( In our situation, a completed prescription.)
- What other processes occur to interrupt
workflow?
- Who is involved in interactions with staff during this
process, but don't actually contribute to it ? ( For example,
staff needing to ask questions, access the photocopier .... )
Once you have answered these questions, look at the problems
associated with each section, then find some answers to streamline
the whole process. You'll be amazed at how simply some problems can
be solved.
While the examples below are specific for our pharmacy, the
principles behind them are applicable to just about any business.
For example, in an office based business - are the items you use on
a regular basis readily available - filing cabinets, printers,
computers?
Do you need to move a filing drawer closer to your desk, as you
access it two or three times a day? Do you need to re-organize your
filing systems to reduce wasted time?
As an example, here's the steps we followed through - What steps
are involved in producing our end product (i.e dispensed
prescriptions )?
- Receive from customer
- Enter into computer
- Dispensed by Technicians
- Checked by Pharmacists
- Wrapped
- Returned to customer
Main interruptions were phone queries, sales of pharmacist-only
medicines, queries from non-dispensary staff or customers, customers
electing to wait for their prescriptions or returning early ( thus
necessitating a re-organization of all prescriptions waiting to be
checked ).
We had customers entering the dispensary to ask questions, staff
looking for paper, envelopes, drug reps, filing of paperwork , staff
accessing the store room through the dispensary - to name just a
few.
- Step Three:
Quality Control Documentation
When the NZ Pharmaceutical Society introduced its' Quality in
Pharmacy Programme in 1997, many pharmacies faced the daunting task
of producing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), then the ongoing
task of producing documentation proving not only that they had
completed tasks, but also proving they had reviewed their own SOPs
on a regular basis.
Yet another repetitive task, so Jeff Ross and Bob McMullan set to
work automating the process, and created a computer programme called
MAQS.
Nowdays, completing quality documentation takes less than 5
minutes a day. Once the MAQS programme is started up, it prints out
a daily "To Do" list, which dispensary staff complete the tasks,
sign off the form and it is also signed off by the duty pharmacist.
The completed form is then filed, and the daily procedures tasks
meet the criteria of the NZ Pharmaceutical Society's Quality in
Pharmacy Standards.
Reviewing Policies and Procedures are just as easy - MAQS allows
you to assign review periods for each policy and procedure, and at
the assigned date the To Do list will include a document review
reminder. If you don't review the document at this point, it will
keep reminding you it is due to be done. Once reviewed, a document
is automatically produced for you to sign and file.
MAQS is not limited just to Pharmacy Applications, but would be
useful for any business, as it has applications in :
- Policies
- Procedures
- Job Descriptions
- Staff Training
A simple solution, saving precious time and hassle.
For more information on the MAQS programme
click here.
