Walgreens POWER Initiative
Walgreens POWER Initiative
In 2009 Walgreens announced its plan to implement its POWER Initiative, with an expected completion by the third quarter of 2009. The POWER Initiative provides workload balancing that offloads dispensing duties from individual Walgreens pharmacists to centralized processing centers. The initiative is a way for Walgreens to make the transition into a community-practice model of pharmacy in the retail setting. The new model would give pharmacists a chance to counsel patients more often and offer vaccinations if regulations permit. ("Walgreens moves ahead with POWER program in Florida | Drug Topics", n.d.) Company leaders predict the project will free pharmacists and even pharmacy technicians from some of the mundane dispensing tasks so they can migrate to a broader role in patient oversight, clinical care and integrated health care alongside physicians. ("Walgreens’ ‘Power’ initiative expands, centralizing workload in Florida, Arizona | Drug Store News", n.d.)
While the benefits of the POWER Initiative are obvious there is a gloomy side to the implementation of the process; it is called RIF (Reduction in Force). So while this process will free up pharmacists and pharmacy technicians to interact more with patients, there will be far fewer available to do so. During this reduction in force process Walgreens offered pharmacy technicians the option to transfer to the front end of the store, unfortunately most stores did not have available positions for these technicians, due to a reduction in the front end payroll hours as well. Not only were there limited positions available in the front end of the store, many managers were hesitant to fill these positions with a registered pharmacy technician because of the pay differential between obtaining a new hire at $7.50 an hour or moving a registered pharmacy technician into a front cashier position at a rate of $13.50 per hour.
With over 100 pharmacy technician and pharmacist layoffs complete
In 2009 Walgreens announced its plan to implement its POWER Initiative, with an expected completion by the third quarter of 2009. The POWER Initiative provides workload balancing that offloads dispensing duties from individual Walgreens pharmacists to centralized processing centers. The initiative is a way for Walgreens to make the transition into a community-practice model of pharmacy in the retail setting. The new model would give pharmacists a chance to counsel patients more often and offer vaccinations if regulations permit. ("Walgreens moves ahead with POWER program in Florida | Drug Topics", n.d.) Company leaders predict the project will free pharmacists and even pharmacy technicians from some of the mundane dispensing tasks so they can migrate to a broader role in patient oversight, clinical care and integrated health care alongside physicians. ("Walgreens’ ‘Power’ initiative expands, centralizing workload in Florida, Arizona | Drug Store News", n.d.)
While the benefits of the POWER Initiative are obvious there is a gloomy side to the implementation of the process; it is called RIF (Reduction in Force). So while this process will free up pharmacists and pharmacy technicians to interact more with patients, there will be far fewer available to do so. During this reduction in force process Walgreens offered pharmacy technicians the option to transfer to the front end of the store, unfortunately most stores did not have available positions for these technicians, due to a reduction in the front end payroll hours as well. Not only were there limited positions available in the front end of the store, many managers were hesitant to fill these positions with a registered pharmacy technician because of the pay differential between obtaining a new hire at $7.50 an hour or moving a registered pharmacy technician into a front cashier position at a rate of $13.50 per hour.
With over 100 pharmacy technician and pharmacist layoffs complete