When Fargo Calls | A Pharmacist's Journey
Do you know a Pharmacist with a North Dakota License?
Our journey to Fargo, North Dakota began when one of our clients forwarded an email to our team asking if there was anyone who knew a pharmacist with a North Dakota license. Innocently, and perhaps naively, Todd Raehtz, President of Indispensable Health, replied to the email that he had personally received the multistate pharmacist passport in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and North Dakota was among the participating states.
Todd’s email response was a welcomed relief to a North Dakota CEO as he explained their small hospital pharmacy department was losing all their pharmacists, including their director of pharmacy (DOP), did not have any applicants, and their only full-time pharmacy technician quit among the mass exoduses of health care professionals leaving their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic. To better frame the setting, this happened in November of 2020 when news had recently broken that one of the pandemic’s new hotspots was North Dakota.
“This was such a unique situation. The timing was immediate. The outlook was grim due to the holidays, the COVID-19 pandemic, [and] the unique regional impact on the pharmacist network”
It was no surprise Raehtz instinctively acted to help a pharmacy in need. Despite the holidays being right around the corner Raehtz reflects, “This was such a unique situation. The timing was immediate. The outlook was grim due to the holidays, the COVID-19 pandemic, the unique regional impact on the pharmacist network, and the next thing I’m doing is getting a few immunizations at the Grass Lake Community Pharmacy and kissed my family goodbye”.
With a new role as an interim DOP for a Fargo hospital pharmacy, Raehtz worked alongside administration to assess the underlying causes leading to pharmacy staff dissatisfaction and high turnover. The primary actions necessary were systems training, workload reconfiguration, a little customer service orientation, and most importantly creating a pharmacy environment to attract highly qualified pharmacy team members. As new team members came aboard, the team came together, (StaffRx) and issues were quite easily resolved.
Improving a Fargo Pharmacy Department with Telepharmacy
One of the key improvements Todd Raehtz made during his time in Fargo was introducing our TelepharmRx, telepharmacy services, to the hospital. An unattractive feature of the pharmacist and DOP positions included a demanding after hours on-call assignment. On-call, at the time, resulted in multiple calls per off-shift: most requiring the pharmacist to drop everything and enter an order. Or worse, they could have to drop everything and come to work to dispense something. Although being on-call is not a problem for all DOP’s or pharmacists, it can interrupt free time, family time, sleep, and create a general feeling of not being “off work” when away from the hospital. For example, a 3:00 A.M. drive to the hospital in Fargo in January wasn’t a picnic. Raehtz felt this was a deterrent to qualified candidates in an exceedingly small applicant pool. The CEO agreed and focus was shifted to increase job desirability for the incumbent DOP and existing pharmacists by ensuring they would have a better work-life balance with one of TelepharmRx’s services, First Call. First Call takes the pressure off on-call pharmacists by sending calls to a telepharmacist first and the call will only be forwarded to the on-call pharmacist if there is an urgent need that requires a pharmacist to be on-site as soon as possible.
Financially, the cost of fixing the lack of work-life balance the DOP had while on-call with First Call Telepharmacy was the same, or less than, the cost of paying the on-call pharmacists for the services they would have to provide after work. Other Pharmacy Management optimizations were made with content improvements for the automated medication dispensing cabinet, Pyxis, improving nursing comfort with Minibag+ and AddVantage systems, and adding premixed IVs to the ADC.
In April of 2021, five months after Raehtz trekked to North Dakota, there was a happy conclusion to his Fargo adventure when a DOP that fit the role and had excellent experience to lead the newly revamped pharmacy. Indispensable Health began when Raehtz was providing coverage as a relief pharmacist and saw the need out there that was bigger than he alone could provide. We suspect it was a great callback to what led him to begin this company, while he helped lead this Fargo pharmacy department as their Interim DOP. Raehtz looks back fondly on the five months in Fargo today with gratitude for the great pharmacy interns and the pharmacists and techs that came together during that time to serve the patients, physicians, nurses, and the rest of the hospital team. New friends made.
Author: Todd Raehtz, AKA “Todd the Pharmacist”, President of Indispensable Health
SHORT-STAFFED PHARMACY?
No matter the pharmacy position, StaffRx can find the perfect pharmacy professional for intermediate relief during any type of staffing shortage
TELEPHARMACY SERVICES
Interested in remote pharmacy services? TelepharmRx provides a wide range of services suitable to any pharmacy needs