![]() Survey: Three-Quarters of Community Pharmacies Report Staff Shortages.CVS, Walmart to Cut Pharmacy Hours as Staffing Squeeze Continues. ![]() We need to stop conflating and blaming the current conditions on pharmacist or technician shortages, when it's due to short-staffing and health care system faults." 5 Pharmacy is a rewarding profession and pharmacists are experts in medication use. "More accurately, there is a shortage of pharmacists and technicians willing to work under the current conditions. It is incorrect to say that there is a shortage of pharmacists or pharmacy technicians," said Ilisa BG Bernstein, PharmD, JD, FAPhA, interim executive vice president and CEO of APhA, in the press release. "Some are blaming reduced hours on a pharmacist shortage. Therefore, APhA urged pharmacy leaders to address the underlying staffing issues. The statement did note, however, that the workload of pharmacists will remain unchanged, with a shorter amount of time to complete it each day. Shorter hours will affect patients, with slightly more limited opportunities to pick up prescriptions, receive vaccines, and receive other pharmacy services. In a statement, the American Pharmacists Association (APhA) noted that the impacts of these new hours are still unclear. 4ĭespite these efforts, staff shortages are ongoing, with changes such as limited hours intended to help alleviate the strain. 4 Moving forward, staff will be evaluated based on behaviors that support patient care and experiences, rather than task-based metric systems. In October 2022, Walgreens also announced that it was changing its talent management approaches, eliminating task-based metrics for pharmacy staff performance reviews. Pharmacies have tried to find some solutions, including signing bonuses, higher wages, lunch breaks, and automation. You take the labor shortage which was acute, and add runaway inflation this year, and you have challenging conditions for local, independent pharmacies.” 3 “Staffing shortages are making those normally short wait times a little longer. ![]() Douglas Hoey, PharmD, MBA, in a press release from August 2022. “Community pharmacists take pride in their ability to be able to efficiently take care of the consumer’s health care needs, especially compared to some of the big chains,” said NCPA CEO B. Roughly 73% of respondents said they were dealing with the shortages by offering higher wages and benefits, but 54% said it is taking longer to fill patient prescriptions. More than 88% of the respondents in 2022 said that finding pharmacy technicians was the number 1 problem, followed by front-end staff at 56%. Importantly, this survey found little improvements between May and November 2021, when roughly 79% and 70% of community pharmacies, respectively, said they were struggling to find workers. In a survey by NCPA in August 2022, researchers found that more than three-quarters of community pharmacies were struggling to fill open positions. In pharmacies, shortages have led to higher wages for employees as well as longer wait times for patients, according to the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA). Staff shortages have been an ongoing challenge in all health care environments. “By adjusting hours in select stores this spring, we ensure our pharmacy teams are available to serve patients when they’re most needed,” CVS told the Wall Street Journal in a statement. ![]() 1Īccording to the Wall Street Journal, CVS plans to focus its reduced hours on times when patient demand is low or when a store has only 1 pharmacist on site. 2 This follows a change implemented in 2022, closing CVS pharmacies from 1:30 pm until 2 pm every day to allow staff a daily lunch break. Similarly, the Wall Street Journal has reported that CVS will reduce or change hours at approximately two-thirds of its locations starting in March. Weekend hours will not change, according to Axios. Walmart pharmacies will begin closing at 7 pm on weekdays, which is 2 hours earlier than the previous closing time of 9 pm. ![]() Several major pharmacy chains are reducing their hours as they continue to deal with nationwide pharmacy staff shortages, according to reporting by Axios. ![]()
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