https://www.wgal.com/article/cvs-statement-pharmacists-suicides-colleague-support/65501050
national pharmacist workforce study done last year showed a majority of pharmacists rated their workload level as “high” or “excessively high,” especially those at chain and mass merchandiser pharmacies.
News 8 On Your Side’s Susan Shapiro looked into it after several recent suicides among pharmacists in the Susquehanna Valley and elsewhere, and how it impacts patient safety. You can read that report here.
CVS released a statement to News 8 and provided more details on its investments, colleague support initiatives, and the acquisition of Rite Aid prescription files. That information is posted below.
CVS statement
“We were devastated to learn about the recent deaths of two CVS Pharmacy colleagues. Both men were well-respected pharmacists and valued members of our Lancaster, PA-area CVS Pharmacy team. Our thoughts and prayers are with their families, friends, and colleagues during this incredibly difficult time. Counseling and support services are being offered to all colleagues.”
CVS Pharmacy investments
“We’re committed to ensuring there are appropriate levels of staffing and resources at our stores and pharmacies. We regularly make investments in our CVS Pharmacy locations to help ensure our teams are supported and able to deliver excellent service to our patients. Ongoing actions we’ve taken in recent years include scheduling additional support, enhancing recruitment and hiring, and strengthening training programs. We’ve also introduced innovative tools to support workload and workflow, enabling our pharmacy teams to better focus on patient care.”
Rite Aid
“Regarding our acquisition of prescription files from Rite Aid, prior to taking on the new prescriptions we’ve been focused on ensuring our pharmacies are appropriately staffed and that our pharmacy teams are properly equipped to provide pharmacy care to both existing and new patients. We are confident our teams will be able to handle prescriptions moving to our Pennsylvania pharmacies from closing Rite Aid locations. To help further support our teams, we’ve hired more than 1,500 pharmacy team members in Pennsylvania this year, including nearly 50 in the Lancaster area. And we’re interviewing Rite Aid employees who are interested in joining CVS so they can continue to care for patients in their community.”
Metrics
“Pharmacy care must be safe, effective, and efficient for patients to achieve their best possible health outcomes, which is why we provide our pharmacy teams and leaders with tools to ensure the safety and quality of their services. While we’ve reduced the number of metrics we measure in recent years, we do use tools and metrics to have a clear picture of what is working and where improvements may be needed to continuously improve our colleague and patient experiences.”
Colleague support
“CVS Health regularly offers all our colleagues, including our store and pharmacy teams, several resources to support them – whether they need help dealing with day‑to-day issues, emotional resilience, relationship challenges or more serious mental health concerns. For example, colleagues have access to no-cost, confidential counseling sessions 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
Filed under: General Problems
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