The professional services specialist

For Bradley Butt MPS at his Cooleman Court Pharmacy in Canberra, dispensing robots and automation are just tools that help him focus on delivering award-winning pharmacy services to patients.

How did you get started in community pharmacy?

I used to work at the pharmacy in Armidale, NSW, picking up the rubbish in the car park. Inevitably it turned into pharmacy assistant work and then a dispense tech and off to study pharmacy. Greg Hannon [the owner] was a very early adopter of this serviced-based, forward-pharmacy model. He was passionate about providing hands-on advice: looking at a rash, listening to a cough. I worked with him for 10 years and learned the craft of being a pharmacist through him.

Last year you redesigned your pharmacy and installed a dispensing robot. Why?

We wanted to ensure that our pharmacists spent more time with patients because that was one of the things we learned from our patient surveys. One way we believed we could achieve that was by optimising the dispensing process so that dispense techs were processing. Having a pharmacist processing a script is crazy and takes pharmacists away from their core business: checking prescriptions for safety and accuracy and providing advice. So, we worked with Pharmacium – they do pharmacy design – and gutted the shop, redesigned everything and incorporated a Consis dispensing robot. It relocates stock to an exit point so staff can just scan and label medicines ready for a pharmacist to review.

What has been the benefit?

There’s a tangible time saving on each prescription; no walking through shelves each time. And we’ve cut dispensing errors. It’s streamlined our dispensing process and means we can now do a direct dispense. As pharmacists, we now spend a whole lot more time with the patients, which our business model and patients demand. There are clear benefits to customers, but also for staff satisfaction; pharmacists like to spend time with patients, more now than ever. The graduates coming out of university now are very patient-orientated.

Why the focus on additional professional services?

In the US, there are the big providers like Walmart and the like, but there’s still really successful small community pharmacies who specialise. They’re not trying to compete with Walmart. You can’t be everything to everybody. We need to look at how we can be practitioners more than providers of a commodity. If we can do that and put ourselves in a pharmacy that sings that message to our communities, then we’re doing well.

What additional professional services do you offer?

We offer smoking cessation counselling, point-of-care testing, vaccination, diabetes educator clinic and asthma services. Our cardiovascular clinic took out the People’s Choice Award at this year’s PSA Pharmacy Shark Tank contest, and our Men’s Health Downunder urology clinic is recognised as a national leader.

What advice do you have for others who want to focus on establishing additional professional services?

For an early career pharmacist, if you want to be doing more professional services and you’re not, then you need to look at where you’re working and the people around you. If the business model doesn’t facilitate that, then maybe look elsewhere. Put yourself in a position where you’ve got people around you who support you. If you’re working with somebody who’s not supportive of that, then it’s always going to stymie you.

Further resources

Want to find out more about different career pathways for pharmacists? Visit www.psa.org.au/careerpathways