The nationwide pharmacist shortage is impacting hospitals, retail and community pharmacies, with many facing double-digit vacancy rates. This issue may not be new, but has been exacerbated by COVID and recently validated by a joint survey conducted by ASHP and PTCB.

In many pharmacies, the staff that are left are doing more work to pick up the load – or in some cases pharmacists, students and residents are filling in the gaps of traditional technician work. The effort to maintain USP compliance will only increase once the USP updates are finalized by doubling the competency frequency and increasing the surface sampling requirements to monthly. With the heavy workload and alternate staff covering additional responsibilities, they may not be as proficient in workflows that support compliance creating wider gaps and exposing pharmacies to risks in compliance.

Compliance provides the foundation of all pharmacy activities. Essentia Health has leveraged Simplifi 797 to monitor compliance as well as help their teams focus during these challenging times. “We view our compliance program as the core of what we do, so that no matter where a patient encounters our system, they can be confident in the care they receive,” says David Sperl, PharmD, Senior Director, Acute Pharmacy at Essentia Health. Simplifi 797 has helped the Essentia pharmacy team keep an eye on compliance remotely when leaders were working from home. On the front lines, by standardizing tasks in Simplifi 797, new staff have a clear expectation of what needs to get done each day, week and month. In fact, this actually frees up pharmacy trainers to spend more time on more complex training components and has relieved some training fatigue for their team. Read more >