Pharmacies Optimize Staff Scheduling Ahead of COVID-19 Vaccination

November 11, 2020

Pharmacies are taking the wheel and becoming a driving force in the name of public safety and community convenience as COVID-19 surges on. Pharmacists have been administering a slew of vaccines in record numbers since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. All signs point to this becoming the norm as opposed to a mere surge in community reliance as we steadily approach the approval and nationwide implementation of a coronavirus vaccine.

Pharmacists are in a great position to administer the soon-to-be approved vaccine, according to John Beckner, RPh, senior director of strategic initiatives at NCPA. “If you want to mass-immunize the population, you want to use pharmacists,” he told Drug Topics®️.

Sounds great, but as pharmacies continue to serve the community by way of COVID-19 testing sites and an uptick in seasonal flu-related demands, is your pharmacy ready to handle another influx of increased patient care and extended services once the COVID-19 vaccine is available? Is your current pharmacy staff scheduling process scalable? Does it provide a transparent view of off-site clinic staffing, normal in-house staffing, and in-house patient care demands in real-time?

If you’re relying on manual staff scheduling strategies, you know the mountain of challenges you may face in the coming year.

To meet this demand, a proactive scheduling tool is invaluable. In the coming weeks, many pharmacies will likely hire and train an influx of staff to meet the forecasted demand. This is also coming at a time when pharmacies are already in high demand as the flu season rapidly descends upon us.

You need a way to streamline staff scheduling in order to handle the everyday demands of a pharmacy during flu season, along with the additional tasks of administering the soon to be released COVID-19 vaccine.

It’s time to look objectively at your administrative processes and determine what you are going to need in a scheduling software solution to minimize your administrative tasks while optimizing your resources to best serve your facility and your community.

Credential Tracking

· Who is qualified to administer vaccines?

· Who is qualified to fill the gaps in scheduling?

· Who is qualified to orchestrate and work at off-site vaccine clinics and events?

With scheduling software, you’ll get instant answers to these questions because everything you need is readily and easily accessible with credential tracking, making optimization simple by ensuring that only those staff with the proper credentials are scheduled into provider slots.

Messaging

Pharmacy staff scheduling software that includes enhanced messaging features is a game-changer. An internal platform allowing scheduling managers and staff to stay connected is especially crucial during high volume times like these. Send out important reminders broadcasting last-minute gaps in coverage, changes in employee schedules, or notifying staff of upcoming licensure renewals and deadlines. Enhanced features allow segmented messaging so only the staff who needs to be notified will receive the message.

Urgent Scheduling

The current state of healthcare has moved pharmacists from behind the counter to the front lines. The last thing you have time to worry about is filling urgent, last-minute shift openings. With the right pharmacy staff scheduling software, you can communicate any urgent scheduling needs with your staff within 12 to 48 hours in advance through the internal messaging platform. Messages are even time-stamped, giving you peace of mind that your message was received and read.

Easy Reporting

Schedule360’s dashboard provides a quick, concise overview of your schedule and report status. These easy to read, configurable reports allow insight on important data and information such as labor costs, calendar reports, staff schedules, financial reports, data exports, and time clock reports across multiple locations or pinpointed to view individual facilities at a glance. Having a view of the big picture in real time allows you to better understand your target hours with a view of overtime thresholds and allocates your resources accordingly.

Proactive Stance

Many pharmacists are already operating at the top of their license. In order to adapt to the upcoming demands and challenges, new tools that optimize your resources to provide the highest level of care to patients is invaluable to your administrative processes. Schedule360 recognizes the unique challenges pharmacies face now and in the foreseeable future. We also understand that while you think all of this sounds like the solution you need, finding time to implement something new seems impossible. Rest assured we offer easy guidance, ongoing support, and quick deployment resulting in an organized, streamlined solution without requiring any heavy lifting from you and your team. Contact us today to schedule a customized demo of our scheduling software solution tailored to the incomparable support your pharmacy administration requires.