How Kashat Pharmacy Prioritizes Quality Care with EQUIPP

In this episode of the PQS by Innovaccer Quality Corner Show, host Stephanie Hale spoke with Katherine Weiss, Certified Pharmacy Technician, Lead Pharmacy Technician, and Manager at Kashat Pharmacy, about how their independent community pharmacy in Michigan prioritizes quality care through the strategic use of tools like EQUIPP.

Katherine explains how the pharmacy integrates EQUIPP into their daily workflow and specifies which programs are the most helpful. She provides helpful tips in using EQUIPP including how to maintain focus during busy seasons.

Chapters

• 0:51 Introduction
• 2:07 Kashat Pharmacy Engagement with Patients
• 3:52 Using EQUIPP
• 7:01 Documenting Patients in EQUIPP
• 8:44 EQUIPP Tips
• 10:22 Maintaining Focus During Busy Seasons
• 11:45 Closing

Transcript

00:00:01:10 - 00:00:29:05

Katherine Weiss

Well, as you know, there are a lot of different tools that are offered to pharmacists to focus on, patient performance. EQUIPP stands out to me, because it's really focused on outcomes and performance metrics. We utilize EQUIPP, because we can track our impact on medication adherence and quality measures. Especially patients on statins, RASA, and diabetic medications.

00:00:29:07 - 00:00:40:06

Katherine Weiss

It's also an essential tool for aligning our work with payer expectations, helping us maintain a strong performance and improve our ratings with patient care.

00:00:41:06 - 00:00:45:04

Voice Over

Welcome to the Pharmacy Quality Solutions Quality Corner Show,

00:00:45:20 - 00:00:50:24

Voice Over

Buckle up and put your thinking cap on. The Quality Corner Show starts now.

00:00:51:24 - 00:01:14:10

Stephanie Hale

Hello and welcome to a special edition of the Quality Corner podcast show. Today I will be your host, Stephanie Hale, Quality Programs Manager here at PQS by Innovaccer. On today's edition of the Quality Corner Show, I have the privilege of interviewing Katherine Weiss, Certified Pharmacy Technician, lead pharmacy technician, and manager at Kashat Pharmacy.

00:01:14:12 - 00:01:19:04

Stephanie Hale

Welcome to the podcast. And, Katherine, can you tell us a little bit more about yourself?

00:01:19:11 - 00:01:30:11

Katherine Weiss

Hi, Stephanie. Yes, I'm currently a lead pharmacy technician manager at Kashat Pharmacy. I've, worked there for about, ten years.

00:01:30:11 - 00:01:49:07

Katherine Weiss

I've been in pharmacy for about 20 years, collectively. I'm currently pursuing my bachelor's and master's degree in public health at University of Michigan. So I'm finishing that up with, like, emphasis in

00:01:49:07 - 00:01:52:03

Katherine Weiss

administrative management.

00:01:53:05 - 00:02:07:01

Katherine Weiss

Besides that, I have two daughters. One is 12, almost 13, and the other one is seven. So between work, school and kids, it’s making me a pretty busy.

00:02:07:11 - 00:02:27:12

Stephanie Hale

Yeah, it sounds like you're you're pretty busy, all around. So let's get into a little bit about the pharmacy and your team. So how many staff members are there or, team members that are on the staff of the pharmacy? And how many patients are you all engaging with on a weekly basis? Would you say.

00:02:27:18 - 00:02:33:00

Katherine Weiss

So? We have a pretty close knit team. That's.

00:02:33:00 - 00:03:02:14

Katherine Weiss

That has about three pharmacists, seven pharmacy technicians, including myself and some other support staff. We are an independent community pharmacy, so we engage with about 300 plus patients each week. And that number can vary depending on the services that we offer. Whether it be vaccines, medication, therapeutic management, adherence and patient counseling.

00:03:02:16 - 00:03:21:05

Katherine Weiss

Our pharmacists and staff are pretty hands on, whether it's answering clinical questions, providing patient education, or helping them navigate their medications. So we try to give a personalized, consistent care delivery for any patient that comes through our pharmacy.

00:03:22:00 - 00:03:52:23

Stephanie Hale

Nice, nice. That's great to hear, how many people you have involved on staff. And then, of course, all the services that you provide for your patients. And I know we're getting upon busy, busy time this year for vaccinations, etc.. So as we hear from many pharmacies, often there are so many, software programs that you could be utilizing and other competing priorities, like we said, with vaccines or different, support that you would provide for patients. In the pharmacy,

00:03:52:24 - 00:04:04:04

Stephanie Hale

from a clinical perspective, why do you prioritize using utilizing a EQUIPP amongst the other number of tasks that you may be, completing in the pharmacy?

00:04:04:14 - 00:04:32:09

Katherine Weiss

Well, as you know, there are a lot of different tools that are offered to pharmacists to focus on, patient performance. EQUIPP stands out to me, because it's really focused on outcomes and performance metrics. We utilize EQUIPP, because we can track our impact on medication adherence and quality measures. Especially patients on statins, RASA, and diabetic medications.

00:04:32:11 - 00:04:43:10

Katherine Weiss

It's also an essential tool for aligning our work with payer expectations, helping us maintain a strong performance and improve our ratings with patient care.

00:04:43:23 - 00:04:59:15

Stephanie Hale

Yeah. So a follow up question to that. When do you find it best to log in to EQUIPP? Is it morning or afternoon once a week? How frequently and then how much time is being spent typically when you guys are, accessing the EQUIPP dashboard.

00:05:00:02 - 00:05:35:15

Katherine Weiss

Usually mornings, tend to be the most effective time to log in to EQUIPP, because the pharmacy after the first hour or two gets pretty hectic and busy. We usually go over the dashboard once a week, but we still access it quite frequently throughout the day. Based on our workload in the pharmacy and different opportunities that are available within EQUIPP, usually it'll take about 30 to 45 minutes to look for any updates and identify areas that we can improve in.

00:05:35:17 - 00:05:55:09

Katherine Weiss

Then we usually collaborate with the pharmacist and delegate different tasks from EQUIPP for them to go over. So as long as we're doing that on a daily basis, we can really, stay organized and focus and, you know, respond to our performance goals.

00:05:55:18 - 00:06:07:06

Stephanie Hale

Yeah. So organization is definitely key. And just establishing that routine. So what features do you find to be most useful in EQUIPP, and why?

00:06:07:18 - 00:06:51:24

Katherine Weiss

Some of the most useful features in EQUIPP for us are the enhanced services and “My Programs” section. The enhanced services tab shows us, all the programs that we're currently enrolled in and the opportunities that they offer. The dashboards within each measure are very well organized and provide clear, actionable information that supports effective patient outreach. The patient list that's within the platform allows us to quickly identify care gaps and assign follow ups for the patients, completing the opportunities within the tabs or very well integrated, and allow it to be a smooth transition into our workflow.

00:06:52:01 - 00:07:00:09

Katherine Weiss

EQUIPP has allowed us to prioritize clinical services, strengthen patient relationships, and boost our performance on quality measures.

00:07:00:22 - 00:07:23:23

Stephanie Hale

Great. So with Enhanced Services, you are provided a list of patients to engage with and then document on those patients within EQUIPP. Can you give us a brief synopsis of how you guys are working through that? Are you printing off a list within Enhance Services, or what are you doing to make sure that you get in contact with those patients?

00:07:24:11 - 00:07:43:00

Katherine Weiss

Yeah. So within the Enhanced Services, we do get a patient list. So that's what we utilize for our outreach efforts. I will typically go through all the, opportunities that we have organized and print the lists. And then I,

00:07:43:00 - 00:07:53:20

Katherine Weiss

have the pharmacists kind of get together with me and we'll go over the different opportunities. And you know what we should be discussing with the patient.

00:07:53:22 - 00:08:21:17

Katherine Weiss

Like, I might focus on, contacting the prescribers for the LAMP eligible patients to coordinate, like, extended day supplies and converting them. And then usually we'll have a technician or a pharmacist outreach for the diabetes adherence. Most often than not, though, our pharmacists take the lead on follow ups related to like blood pressure, A1c, and other adherence check ins.

00:08:21:19 - 00:08:32:05

Katherine Weiss

And then we simultaneously document within our pharmacy software and on EQUIPP, what we discuss with the patient if we're able to complete the measurement.

00:08:32:05 - 00:08:44:07

Katherine Weiss

So keeping that kind of, documented and having a structured workflow, we can kind of maintain accountable and make sure that we're making progress with our clinical goals.

00:08:44:18 - 00:08:59:07

Stephanie Hale

Awesome, awesome. Any other advice you would want to share with our pharmacy listeners that would want to start to incorporate EQUIPP into their operations? Any tips that, might help pharmacies that are just starting to use EQUIPP?

00:08:59:23 - 00:09:18:19

Katherine Weiss

If you're just getting started with EQUIPP, my best advice is just take one step at a time and not get overwhelmed with a lot of different platforms. It can seem like a ton of information is just being thrown at you and you don't know where to start. So I would get together with a few of the team members.

00:09:18:21 - 00:09:32:15

Katherine Weiss

Show them how to navigate the dashboard and how to use the patient list to contact the patients and make sure everybody's on the same page. You know, and adjust as you need to.

00:09:32:15 - 00:09:46:07

Katherine Weiss

And then really utilize it as an opportunity to educate the staff that these measures matter. And it's not really just from a payer perspective, but we're improving patient care.

00:09:46:07 - 00:09:56:21

Katherine Weiss

So once that becomes a part of your regular workflow, it just really shifts from being another task to a valuable tool that can support your team and your patients.

00:09:57:10 - 00:10:18:06

Stephanie Hale

Yeah, that's great feedback there. I know a lot of pharmacies take a look at the dashboard and, and they're like, oh my gosh, there's too much here I need. And then they don't get started. But just taking that one step at a time and maybe focusing on Enhanced Services first and then working your way up to my programs, etc..

00:10:18:06 - 00:10:22:07

Stephanie Hale

I think that is great and helpful tips there. So

00:10:22:07 - 00:10:44:10

Stephanie Hale

one question I have, is now that it's August and busy flu cold, the flu season, flu shot season is coming up. How do you continue to make sure that your pharmacy incorporates logging in to EQUIPP, and,completing enhanced services and keeping that consistent workflow that you've had up until this point?

00:10:44:13 - 00:11:13:12

Katherine Weiss

Yes. So I would say keeping that normal schedule of logging in on a regular basis. And really, I think during this season where you're having a lot of patients actually come into the pharmacy, it really gives an opportunity to connect with those patients that may need additional services like blood pressure screenings, A1C screenings and you're allowed to be face to face, have your pharmacists give them that personal care while they're getting their vaccines.

00:11:13:14 - 00:11:45:17

Katherine Weiss

And really, essentially, I think it almost sometimes makes it easier because if you're able to schedule these immunizations and you know, these patients are coming in, the pharmacies can kind of prepare a little bit better interaction to make sure that they're covering all these things that EQUIPP offers within the dashboard. So that being said, I really think it helps on a larger scale to have that face to face interaction with the patient, and it gives a more personal touch.

00:11:45:22 - 00:12:02:06

Stephanie Hale

Awesome, awesome. Yeah. And I know just having that, additional touchpoint, they're already there in the pharmacy. You're having them sit down to fill out paperwork and just get their blood pressure reading while they're sitting there and doing that. So, definitely great advice.

00:12:02:06 - 00:12:19:14

Stephanie Hale

So just wanted to thank you again for being on the show, and thank you for your dedication to the profession and continued to work, there with your community. To our Quality Show listeners, we thank you for tuning in again and appreciate your time chatting with us and getting to know, Katherine from Kashat Pharmacy.

00:12:19:16 - 00:12:24:12

Stephanie Hale

We hope you connect with us again for our next podcast episode.

00:12:24:16 - 00:12:25:22

Katherine Weiss

Thank you so much.

00:12:25:22 - 00:12:27:03

Katherine Weiss

Thanks.

00:12:27:11 - 00:12:31:20

Voice Over

The Pharmacy Quality Solutions Quality Corner Show has a request for you.

00:12:31:22 - 00:12:55:07

Voice Over

Our goal is to spread the word about how quality measurement can help improve health outcomes, and we need your help in sharing this podcast to friends and colleagues in the health care industry. We also want you to provide feedback, ask us questions, and suggest health topics you'd like to see covered. If you are a health expert and you want to contribute to the show or even talk on the show, please contact us.

00:12:55:09 - 00:13:11:06

Voice Over

You can email info@pharmacyquality.com. Let us know what is on your mind, what we can address so that you are fully informed. We want you to be able to provide the best care for your patients and members, and we wish all of you listeners out there

00:13:11:06 - 00:13:11:14

Voice Over

well.