Page 2 - GTA South BU Newsletter No 3

Dave Puri,
VP
GTA South Operations
We are in the home stretch of a year that none of us predicted would have us living through a global pandemic. I’m truly proud of the great work our Associates have done leading their teams through these turbulent and unprecedented times. During recent holiday store tours, it has been overwhelming to see and hear of how many staff members have made personal sacrifices to work on the front lines. I’ve heard stories from Associates who could not attend their daughter’s wedding to many who are not able to see their aging parents due to COVID-19 travel restrictions. This has been a tough year to say the least but I’m so impressed and inspired by Associates and their teams as they rally together to support one another.
The Associates in our BU have risen to the occasion and have done a marvelous job supporting public health initiatives. The start of the flu season was unlike anything we’ve seen in the past. In the first 3-4 weeks of the flu season we delivered over 200K flu shots in our BU, which is 145% of our CYP, the highest YoY growth rate in our province. During recent holiday tours I heard about the high level of engagement and the pride Pharmacy teams have shown with providing this important public health program. In addition to this, our BU has 33 asymptomatic COVID-19 testing locations and have delivered over 26K COVID-19 tests, which is the most of any BU in Ontario. I’ve personally contacted each Associate who is participating on the COVID-19 testing pilot to express my gratitude for their commitment that together we can do this. The exceptional execution of this critical public health initiative demonstrates your dedication and care for our communities and will no doubt pave the way for more services in the near future
VP Address
Speaking of professional services, I would also like to share an important update on the “Start at Pharmacy” pilot program currently taking place across 10 stores in Mississauga. At a high-level, we kicked off this pilot project in January of this year with sponsorship from the Senior Leadership Team. The pilot project has many layers to it. The first layer, or pre- requisite, was to have all the pilot stores on our central vial program. The intent behind this was to free up the Rx teams from dispensing related tasks. The second layer of the pilot program was to re-invest the potential labour savings from centralization into the delivery of Professional services. Each pilot store held a dedicated Diabetes clinic day each week where they had pre-booked appointments for Diabetes MedsChecks, point-of-care A1C testing, a Diabetes coaching app for patients, and referrals to a dietitian for further diet related consults.
The pilot program was off to a strong start, and then we put things on hold during the peak of the pandemic to then restart it later this year. The results from the pilot program have been very strong with this cohort of pilot stores and we will see many aspects of this pilot project rolled out across our BU in 2021. As an example, we are currently investing in a new central fill vial site in Mississauga, near the airport, where we will have the capacity to on-board the majority of the stores in our BU in the first half of 2021. How can you prepare for the rollout of central fill vial at your store? In a nutshell, select prescriptions on the formulary for the central vial facility can be re-directed to the facility for dispensing if the promise time for the prescription is 48 hours or longer. This captures your IVR prescriptions and your e-Refill prescriptions. By focusing on increasing your e-Refill penetration today you will be able to better leverage the central fill facility tomorrow.