Walgreens POWER (Orlando: pharmacy, costs, stores)

[cphtdfw]

Does anyone know when POWER will hit the DFW market?

[rphwalgreens]

Originally Posted by DeltaSigmaTheta

Hi, I am a RPh in Houston and want to gain insight about the POWER program. Texas is next to undergo the transformation. The company is silent on future moves as we have been left in the dark. Work conditions are tightening & leave me to wonder what is next. I have an idea of what's happening but let's not go there. Any information that you give will be greatly appreciated. Eg: How are the work conditions in the call center? Will we all have to re-interview? Will some Pharmacy personnel be let go? Again...whatever you share will help. Thanks.

About half of our techs are being let go. Everyone is pretty much in the dark here. Power is being postponed again and again due to problems and cost. You will not know what will happen until it just abouts happens. I have no idea what the conditons are in the call center, nor do I hope to, I only applied for at home and stay in retail. Its in a state of "suspension" here. We are hearing they are having so many problems they keep delaying. Yes, I had 2 interviews, they were hard, and draining. They are behavioral interviews, you are asked very indepth questions as to your decisions you have made in the past. If you google (behavioral interview questions) you will get a good idea of what they ask. Be careful!! Just because they ask you the question, don't assume you have the behavior. Like when they ask "When you don't agree with someone or get along with this person, what is your strategy? etc etc. " ok, if you answer this question, you are agreeing with them that there are persons you do not get along with. You can get around this by saying that my work is so important to me, this is my number one goal, that what people think of me has little impact on my goal to achieve. Getting along with people has never been a problem for me. There is a book "Aceing the Interview" which I thought was somewhat helpful. Don't let their questions lead you into admitting you have a problem when you don't. The situational exams are somewhat challenging. Try to attempt the interviews, I had two, with psychology in mind. Be calm, be assertive, be confident. Have a "can do" attitude. Don't be too wordy. Clear, to the point, as brief as possible. My interview guy was yawning with going thru so many. good luck.

[pharmassist]

Power in Tucson starts next week, and even though some of the press is bad, I look forward to the first retail change in 30 years. Retail is defined by selling and making profit, and if there is no profit to be made-all retail pharmacists would have no jobs. The fact that fewer will have retail jobs with power, just reflects the atmosphere in our economy and typical cost cutting. While nobody wants anybody to lose their jobs, it may be a necessary evil for retail pharmacy to exist. Being a cashier doesn't appeal to me much-but counseling up front before sale may prevent some mistakes related to overlooked allergies,etc. It will also prevent stupid complaints about why did i get this rx, wrong quantity,wrong type payment, and other goofy things that customers complain about after the fact. I have as much asked a retail customer or two if they actually were listening to me when I counseled them(but didn't believe their answer). I don't expect power to be well received by customers, but i do expect that in the long run,customer service will actually be better do the change in procedure. In general-I'm not sure how much I can improve the quality of health care other than by offering additonal services. Customers are in too much of a hurry to go on with their life and prefer not to be counseled. the magic bullet theory still lives in their brain-they won't change their lifestyle but they still volunteer to take pills to magically fix their problems.

[oldrph]

The Chicago area can't be too far behind you guys; DTR is beginning to move computers around in the pharmacies. And yet, no pharmacy manager or supervisor has any details. When will we be told of our options regarding our future? Keeping employees in the dark and worrying about our future certainly does not pass the "Four-Way Test". Did Charlie Goodall, Walgreens top tech guy, leave the company? I am glad that this forum exists, as it is our only link to the outside world.

[ndgt10]

Originally Posted by oldrph

The Chicago area can't be too far behind you guys; DTR is beginning to move computers around in the pharmacies. And yet, no pharmacy manager or supervisor has any details. When will we be told of our options regarding our future? Keeping employees in the dark and worrying about our future certainly does not pass the "Four-Way Test". Did Charlie Goodall, Walgreens top tech guy, leave the company? I am glad that this forum exists, as it is our only link to the outside world.

You won't know until right when it happens. Meaning only days in advance. Look for the Chicago area to have this before the end of this year/very early next year. Have fun with it!

[pharmassist]

the four way test is a figment of someones's imagination, and if anything only applies to customers-not employees. furthermore-the open door policy is more aptly-the out the door policy

[FLARPH]

We are currently going thru the POWER transformation in Daytona. It is ROUGH. We currently have the call center active, and the remote data entry, verification and TPR active. We go live with central fill after a few weeks delay due to problems. They are waiting to cut our help until the whole system is active. We had our interview in early June and have been just hanging around since then stressing out and waiting for the axe to fall. Voluntary severance is 2 weeks of pay for every year of service up to 52 weeks total ( this is only for RPH's-different for techs) Non voluntary is 2 weeks of pay for every year of service up to 32 weeks. So unless you have more than 16 years in- no benefit for taking the voluntary that I can see. Customers do no like it, the work flow is great for the techs but awful for the RPH. All I am supposed to do is check that the pills are correct, ring up purchases , and counsel. BUT........ I am responsible for any errors that occur for entering rx for the wrong patient- even though I do not verify that anymore. We are expected to catch all errors at the counseling step. SO, if you care about being sued like I do, you have to pull new rx's out of the bins and recheck the work of the central folks. The number of mistakes I have found while doing this is UNREAL. I have found more mistakes on things like SIG that have gotten by the central RPH's in one month than have come back under my name in probably 3-5 years. Even more amazine, no RPH there checks that the rx is entered under the correct patient- techs do this. I pull out an average of 4-9 significant errors and re type them per shift. And Walgreens feels like I should not even be rechecking the central facility's work- just catch those errors upon counseling. i expect those staffing cuts to come very soon after central fill rolls out- but we are being kept totally in the dark.

[oldrph]

Has Walgreens given you a choice of going to central fill, or have they even told you where that facility is? (I was under the impression that central fill and remote review, etc, were all in one huge factory-type building). If it is not located too far away, maybe you would want to consider that. By the way, how do you check for correct liquids at the register..a smell/taste test..bet the customers would love to see that?! (How many times have you seen a filler mix up prednisolone and prednisone, or cheratussin AC and DAC?) I wonder if that voluntary severance appiles to the 32-36 hour/week pharmacists, too. (Anybody know?) Here in Chicago, they are pushing for immunization certification, so I am sure that will play some role in this. At work, I am the only one making any reference to POWER; everyone chuckles when I mention what I have found on forums such as this, and how the little changes we see are really preparing us for the bigger changes ahead. I guess the "open-door" in the open door policy only swings one way.

[flwagrph]

Originally Posted by oldrph

Has Walgreens given you a choice of going to central fill, or have they even told you where that facility is? (I was under the impression that central fill and remote review, etc, were all in one huge factory-type building). If it is not located too far away, maybe you would want to consider that. By the way, how do you check for correct liquids at the register..a smell/taste test..bet the customers would love to see that?! (How many times have you seen a filler mix up prednisolone and prednisone, or cheratussin AC and DAC?) I wonder if that voluntary severance appiles to the 32-36 hour/week pharmacists, too. (Anybody know?) Here in Chicago, they are pushing for immunization certification, so I am sure that will play some role in this. At work, I am the only one making any reference to POWER; everyone chuckles when I mention what I have found on forums such as this, and how the little changes we see are really preparing us for the bigger changes ahead. I guess the "open-door" in the open door policy only swings one way.

I work in the Orlando market, so have been with POWER since its infancy. My statement to my DM was that I would become one of the highest paid cashiers in the country. Our pharmacy has been full power for about 1 year--we have lost about 20% of our business (customers don't like the call center) & budget has been cut from 490 to 292 hours. We now average 300/day, but it seems like a lot more because I run the cash register most of the day along with pharmacist duties. When there is a competent staff at the CPO, the data entry/review/TPR resolution process helps out, until they all take their lunch breaks. At my store. we now check final product before the package is put in the pick up bins (we were originally told this was not necessary) & also check new RX against hard copy (also told this was not necessary). We do this because of some potentially dangerous near misses & the CPO makes far too many mistakes to do otherwise. There is no time to accurately check at patient pickup when you are the sole person responsible for meeting/greeting/scanning/selling/counseling at 2 inside registers & 2 drive thru lanes (sometimes you may have 1 tech helping out). Immunization certification is now required for all pharmacists--no longer voluntary. Our pharmacy managers are being pressured to go out into the community & solicit business for immunizations. It may be helpful for your mental health to learn all you can about POWER, because it will rock your world. There willl be no chuckles when the process starts & a DM walks into your store one day & closes your inwindow, moves your tech to your verification station, moves you to the out-window/drive thru and you also find yourself as one of the highest paid cashiers....

[oldrph]

Too bad the high-paying cashier position also comes with high-stakes liability. You Florida Wag empolyees have been very helpful/informative and those of us who support families and need to try to figure out our future really appreciate it! Does anyone know if the central fill positions or the offered buy-outs (voluntary severance) apply to only 40hour/week people, or could a 32-36 hour/week employee get in on those, too? In Chicago, our new "contract"/"collective bargaining agreement" clearly labels 32-39 hour/week people as "part-time", so I wonder if that is also in preparation for our "restructuring". One by one, the in-windows are being closed down, so those who are not laughing at me are mentally preparing for this,including thinking about future options outside of Wag...Good luck to all (Isn't there a saying that luck occurs when opportunity meets preparation?).