By RON BARTIZEK
More people taking more drugs means more need for pharmacists. But despite increases in the number of pharmacy schools and graduates, projections show there will not be enough in coming years.
“Nationally and regionally there is a big shortage of pharmacists,” said Dr. Edward Foote, associate professor and chair of Pharmacy Practice at Wilkes University. “We’re just not making enough.”
The nation’s 37,000 chain pharmacies reported about 4,000 job openings recently. That was down from a peak of 7,700 in 2001, but the improving trend could turn around as the baby boom generation ages and more seniors sign up for the Medicare prescription drug program.
Wilkes has stepped in with its Doctor of Pharmacy program, which graduated its first class in 2000. Now averaging 65-70 graduates yearly, Foote says there’s more interest in the program than Wilkes can accommodate.
“If we wanted we could have a class of 300,” he said. And the quality of applicants is rising along with applications. He says the reasons are easy to understand.
“It’s because it’s a solid job market with good pay that can start easily in six figures.” Many employers also are paying sign-on bonuses, and the profession looks to be secure, with a consortium of pharmacy groups projecting a shortage of 157,000 pharmacists nationwide by 2020.
Nationally, the number of pharmacy schools has grown in the past two decades by 20 to 92, producing about 8,200 graduates in 2005.
One way chain pharmacies find qualified help is by enticing owners of local stores to come to work for them. “We do approach the local pharmacies,” said Walgreens spokesperson Carol Hively, to see if they might be interested in trading their independence for job security.
Some individual store owners may be ready to slow down or may not have family members who want to take over, she said. Chains then pay for customer lists and the pharmacist comes to work for them.
That continuity can help the new store get off to a good start, said Mitchell Corwin, an equity analyst for Morningstar.com, because people in small communities know and trust the pharmacist. “That’s an important relationship.”
Foote does not see competition here driving established pharmacists to the chains. “They all have thriving businesses to my knowledge,” he said. “There is a lot of loyalty to these small businesses.”
At the moment, Foote says there is no shortage of pharmacists in Northeastern Pennsylvania, but his brother, a pharmacist in Delaware, has told him about stores that have cut back hours because staff was lacking.
In addition to the job security provided by the growing demand for prescription drugs, Foote looks forward to passage of legislation that will expand pharmacists’ responsibilities.
“Hopefully they’ll expand the area where pharmacists can do more advanced practice stuff,” he said, such as immunizations, counseling and simple clinical operations such as taking and analyzing blood samples.
“It’s really a tenuous but exciting time for pharmacy.”
Ron Bartizek, Times Leader business editor, may be reached at 970-7157.
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Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Thursday, May 18, 2006
A dose of safety
Business finds success overseeing prescriptions
Thursday, May 18, 2006
by Steve Earley
Staff Writer
In a 1999 Institute of Medicine report that revealed more than 7,000 people die each year from medication errors, Christopher Keeys saw an opportunity. A well-known risk factor for medication errors at hospitals – the absence of a pharmacist to double check physician drug orders during the overnight shift – could be eliminated, the Laurel pharmacist reasoned, by giving medical centers remote access to a pharmacist through phone or Internet lines.
While the field of telemedicine is nothing new – it has been widely adopted among radiologists and used extensively by the military – Keeys said he and business partner Kenneth Dandurand were the first to adapt it for pharmacy services.
The two, who 20 years ago founded Clinical Pharmacy Associates, a pharmacy management and consulting firm in Greenbelt and Beltsville, launched MedNovations in 2001.
Under the business model, MedNovations checks a physician’s drug order against a patient’s history and the hospital's recommended practices. Patient allergies, potentially dangerous drug interactions and unusually high dosage levels, perhaps the result of a smudged decimal point, are among the items MedNovations pharmacists reviews. While telepharmacy is possible with as a little as a telephone and fax line, higher-tech systems allow MedNovations to remotely control the dispensing of medicine, Keeys said.
‘‘The machine will not release the product to the nurse until the pharmacist has checked that the dose is right,” he said.
Smaller hospitals, whose limited resources and low patient volume can make having a pharmacist on staff at night prohibitive, can especially benefit from telepharmacy, Keeys said.
The firm aims to turnaround orders within one hour or less – a goal Keeys said it achieves at least 80 percent of the time – but in emergencies complete a review in as little as 15 minutes, he said.
MedNovations can also act as an emergency backup for a pharmacy’s daytime operations, ready to take over in the event of a major snowstorm or other disaster, Keeys added.
MedNovations, which along with Clinical Pharmacy Associates relocated to Laurel in 2003, is among less than 10 known telepharmacy companies, according to the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists.
‘‘It’s fairly new,” said Doug Scheckelhoff, the director of Pharmacy Practice Sections for the 30,000-member Bethesda-based trade group. In fall 2005, the most recent data available, 12.2 percent of the nation’s hospitals used an off-site pharmacy service, he said.
Keeys, 48, said MedNovations is a ‘‘multi-million-dollar company,” but, citing competitors, declined to provide specifics about the company’s finances.
With 28 employees at its Talbott Avenue, Laurel, headquarters and a six-employee staff in Westfield, Mass., MedNovations has contracted to provide remote pharmacy services to just under 30 medical institutions in 10 states, including Laurel Regional Hospital and four other hospitals in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, Keeys said.
‘‘I see this being a significant model for bridging the gap that’s going to be here for a long time,” he said of a national pharmacist shortage that, as baby boomers being to retire, he expects to only worsen.
E-mail Steve Earley at searley@gazette.net.
Copyright © 2006 The Gazette - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Source
Thursday, May 18, 2006
by Steve Earley
Staff Writer
In a 1999 Institute of Medicine report that revealed more than 7,000 people die each year from medication errors, Christopher Keeys saw an opportunity. A well-known risk factor for medication errors at hospitals – the absence of a pharmacist to double check physician drug orders during the overnight shift – could be eliminated, the Laurel pharmacist reasoned, by giving medical centers remote access to a pharmacist through phone or Internet lines.
While the field of telemedicine is nothing new – it has been widely adopted among radiologists and used extensively by the military – Keeys said he and business partner Kenneth Dandurand were the first to adapt it for pharmacy services.
The two, who 20 years ago founded Clinical Pharmacy Associates, a pharmacy management and consulting firm in Greenbelt and Beltsville, launched MedNovations in 2001.
Under the business model, MedNovations checks a physician’s drug order against a patient’s history and the hospital's recommended practices. Patient allergies, potentially dangerous drug interactions and unusually high dosage levels, perhaps the result of a smudged decimal point, are among the items MedNovations pharmacists reviews. While telepharmacy is possible with as a little as a telephone and fax line, higher-tech systems allow MedNovations to remotely control the dispensing of medicine, Keeys said.
‘‘The machine will not release the product to the nurse until the pharmacist has checked that the dose is right,” he said.
Smaller hospitals, whose limited resources and low patient volume can make having a pharmacist on staff at night prohibitive, can especially benefit from telepharmacy, Keeys said.
The firm aims to turnaround orders within one hour or less – a goal Keeys said it achieves at least 80 percent of the time – but in emergencies complete a review in as little as 15 minutes, he said.
MedNovations can also act as an emergency backup for a pharmacy’s daytime operations, ready to take over in the event of a major snowstorm or other disaster, Keeys added.
MedNovations, which along with Clinical Pharmacy Associates relocated to Laurel in 2003, is among less than 10 known telepharmacy companies, according to the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists.
‘‘It’s fairly new,” said Doug Scheckelhoff, the director of Pharmacy Practice Sections for the 30,000-member Bethesda-based trade group. In fall 2005, the most recent data available, 12.2 percent of the nation’s hospitals used an off-site pharmacy service, he said.
Keeys, 48, said MedNovations is a ‘‘multi-million-dollar company,” but, citing competitors, declined to provide specifics about the company’s finances.
With 28 employees at its Talbott Avenue, Laurel, headquarters and a six-employee staff in Westfield, Mass., MedNovations has contracted to provide remote pharmacy services to just under 30 medical institutions in 10 states, including Laurel Regional Hospital and four other hospitals in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, Keeys said.
‘‘I see this being a significant model for bridging the gap that’s going to be here for a long time,” he said of a national pharmacist shortage that, as baby boomers being to retire, he expects to only worsen.
E-mail Steve Earley at searley@gazette.net.
Copyright © 2006 The Gazette - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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