THIS week's contributor is Gerard Stevens, Managing Director, Webstercare - The power of communication: Effective communication can mean life or death for pharmacies, or the difference between struggling and profitable businesses.
Offering information is the easy part. Being open to or listening for a response is just as important.
In a pharmacy, that might be whether the patient understood your instructions or discovering other obstacles to medication adherence. Everyone is an individual and we should aspire to complete the picture of each patient's specific health challenges.
A quick scan of the medication profile will trigger a range of questions and is a starting point in any professional conversation. Sophisticated analysis of pharmacy data is being increasingly adopted to learn more about risk profiles of patients, and numerous tools can prompt targeted engagement.
For instance, I love hearing when pharmacies effectively use Webstercare's PocketProfile medication list to engage customers and increase their use of medication management services.
Or discussing the Pil-Bob with customers whose arthritic hands give them trouble opening medication blisters. People are grateful if you can support their independence.
So do a quick audit of your pharmacy's communication. Do you make effective use of the tools at your disposal?
The above article was sent to subscribers in Pharmacy Daily's issue from 19 Oct 20
To see the full newsletter, see the embedded issue below or CLICK HERE to download Pharmacy Daily from 19 Oct 20
