Latest / Pharmacy Podcast Network / 250 Years of Freedom - 4th of July Special | TWIRx

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250 Years of Freedom - 4th of July Special | TWIRx · Pharmacy Podcast Network

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Twerks. Happy two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of
0:06
Speaker 1: freedom of the United States of America. What a great
0:10
Speaker 1: day it is July third, July third, twenty twenty six,
0:18
Speaker 1: and we are twerk saying. I will tell you it's
0:24
Speaker 1: been a great week for me. I was on vacation
0:27
Speaker 1: with the family in Myrtle Beach and the weather was
0:31
Speaker 1: absolutely phenomenal. I'm excited about this weekend. I hope you
0:37
Speaker 1: are taking some time off. I hope you are going
0:40
Speaker 1: to have a chance to celebrate with your family, to
0:44
Speaker 1: celebrate with your friends, to celebrate this nation. This nation
0:49
Speaker 1: is it's not easy think about the last two hundred
0:52
Speaker 1: and fifty years and what we've all gone through as
0:56
Speaker 1: a nation. Happy Fourth of July. We're excited here on twerks.
1:08
Speaker 2: Here's something most people don't know. The vote for American
1:12
Speaker 2: independence actually happened on July second. John Adams himself believed
1:16
Speaker 2: that was the day the world would forever celebrate, but
1:19
Speaker 2: history had a different idea. July fourth, seventeen seventy six,
1:24
Speaker 2: the day thirteen colonies signed their names to something that
1:26
Speaker 2: would change everything, not just for a nation, for the
1:29
Speaker 2: entire world. The Declaration of Independence didn't just announce freedom,
1:34
Speaker 2: it dared to define it. Nearly two hundred and fifty
1:38
Speaker 2: years later, that spirit is still alive in every firework
1:41
Speaker 2: that lights up the summer sky, in every family gathered
1:44
Speaker 2: around a backyard grill, in every child holding a sparkler
1:48
Speaker 2: like it's something magical, because honestly, it is. From the
1:52
Speaker 2: amber fields to the city skylines, from sea to shining sea,
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Speaker 2: this country is worth celebrating. The sacrifice, the unity, the
2:00
Speaker 2: idea that out of many, we are one. So this
2:03
Speaker 2: Fourth of July, celebrate loudly, celebrate together and remember what
2:07
Speaker 2: this day truly means. I'm Sienna and from all of us,
2:11
Speaker 2: Happy fourth of July. Let freedom ring.
2:15
Speaker 1: Happy fourth of July. It's a good day. We have
2:21
Speaker 1: a lot going on. I want to jump right into
2:25
Speaker 1: twerks News and shout out to everyone that is working today,
2:33
Speaker 1: that is working this weekend. If you are working this weekend,
2:40
Speaker 1: give us a shout out and let us know you're
2:42
Speaker 1: out there. Would love to collaborate with you, mention you
2:46
Speaker 1: on social media. Hopefully you're getting some time off. Up
2:52
Speaker 1: on Twerk's news. Greenville Pharmacy acquires the Boston Spa business.
2:58
Speaker 1: This is being reported off of News ten newsten dot
3:03
Speaker 1: com local. The Greenville Kelly Pharmacy in Greenville has expanded
3:11
Speaker 1: into Saratoga County and according to an announcement made Wednesday,
3:15
Speaker 1: the pharmacy has acquired O'Brien Pharmacy in Bolston, SPA. And
3:22
Speaker 1: it goes on to say in Sean O'Brien and his father,
3:26
Speaker 1: in the entire O'Brien pharmacy team have built something truly
3:30
Speaker 1: special in the Boston Spa. The reason why I am
3:35
Speaker 1: covering a local news story is because we see independent
3:42
Speaker 1: community pharmacies bringing on other lines of business that tie
3:47
Speaker 1: into health and tie into what the public is demanding
3:52
Speaker 1: for health. And we're talking about anestheticians, we're talking about skincare,
3:58
Speaker 1: we're talking about content specialty. I've heard the argument that
4:04
Speaker 1: pharmacists will say things, or pharmacy owners will say things
4:08
Speaker 1: that lean on either side of the spectrum of being
4:12
Speaker 1: pro other services or negative to other services, or saying, hey,
4:17
Speaker 1: we want to be just a pharmacy and just use
4:20
Speaker 1: to dispensing and that's not today, that's not the future
4:26
Speaker 1: of pharmacy services. That ingrain you into some other line
4:32
Speaker 1: of expertise. Is the future. Home infusion, long term care,
4:37
Speaker 1: pharmacy at home, remote patient monitoring, remote therapy monitoring, contraception expertise,
4:47
Speaker 1: a rare disease expertise out of your community. You have
4:52
Speaker 1: got to make some changes with regards to the services
4:56
Speaker 1: that you are delivering to your community and make money,
5:01
Speaker 1: make a lot of money, make good money. Invest that money,
5:05
Speaker 1: however you'd like back into your business. Expand those services
5:09
Speaker 1: and think about areas of your community reach based on delivery. Now,
5:16
Speaker 1: delivery is don't even get me started when I hear
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Speaker 1: people argue about implementation or even the expense of delivery
5:24
Speaker 1: when there are so many technologies out there. AREX for
5:28
Speaker 1: route for example, SDS for example. There are services out
5:33
Speaker 1: there that you can bolt onto your pharmacy. Expand your
5:36
Speaker 1: services and expand the reach of services and the communities
5:41
Speaker 1: that you're serving. Maybe it's a five mile radius right now,
5:46
Speaker 1: time to expand it to seven, to ten, to even
5:50
Speaker 1: fifteen miles. There are areas of the United States that
5:53
Speaker 1: are desperate for community pharmacy services. And I want you
5:57
Speaker 1: to be creative. If you want ideas, if you want
5:59
Speaker 1: a blue print to implement services, reach out to the
6:03
Speaker 1: Pharmacy Podcast reach out to us, send me an email
6:06
Speaker 1: at publisher at pharmacypodcast dot com. Great news this Greenville
6:13
Speaker 1: Pharmacy very excited to hear about this. Next up on
6:17
Speaker 1: Twerk's News, the headline is better Together. We love how
6:23
Speaker 1: people use a terminology that we've been using for years.
6:28
Speaker 1: Together Together our x right, So real world examples of
6:31
Speaker 1: pharmacists provider collaboration in VMS management. How a team based
6:38
Speaker 1: menopause clinic pairs pharmacist guynecologists pelvic floor therapy to streamline
6:44
Speaker 1: core screening and provide symptom release. This comes out of
6:49
Speaker 1: Pharmacy Times and they have a segment called Better Together.
6:56
Speaker 1: I know they probably got that from the Pharmacy podcast
6:58
Speaker 1: network because we're constantly using the term together and coming
7:02
Speaker 1: together as pharmacies and embedding into other services and other expertise.
7:08
Speaker 1: So this panel examined what truly integrated multiple disciplinary menopause
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Speaker 1: care looks like. This is right up the alley for pharmacists.
7:18
Speaker 1: This isn't just limited to health system collaboration. But this
7:22
Speaker 1: is a great story. I want you to read down
7:24
Speaker 1: on this. I want you to read go to Pharmacy Times.
7:27
Speaker 1: Just came out today July third, and understand once again,
7:32
Speaker 1: if you want to expand services, if you want to
7:35
Speaker 1: collaborate with health systems, if you want to expand your
7:39
Speaker 1: own consultancy, even as a single pharmacist, there is expertise
7:45
Speaker 1: ready for you to capture the attention of consumers around you.
7:52
Speaker 1: Become the expert in your community, whether that's as a
7:57
Speaker 1: store owner, as a pharmacy owner, or as a cont
8:00
Speaker 1: Once again, we have the blueprints. Reach out to me.
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Speaker 1: We're going to get you in touch with organizations to
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Speaker 1: execute building your business. Whether you were once again, if
8:10
Speaker 1: you're a consultant pharmacist, if you're a pharmacy owner. Big
8:16
Speaker 1: organizations that know how to do it, like IPC, Independent
8:19
Speaker 1: Pharmacy Cooperative APCI knows how to execute. We just got
8:26
Speaker 1: back from mckusson idea share. They have so many ideas
8:30
Speaker 1: of how to expand your services. This is a great
8:32
Speaker 1: story coming out of Pharmacy Time. Shout out to Pharmacy Times.
8:37
Speaker 1: Next up from Medical Economics, coming from Medicaleconomics dot com
8:43
Speaker 1: headline and it's Mark Cuban's Costs plus Drugs teaming up
8:48
Speaker 1: with Humana on employer drug costs. Resident physician burnout hits
8:53
Speaker 1: a three year low. The symptom based dosing gets opioid exposed,
8:57
Speaker 1: newborn's homes sooner. Morning Medical Update, and this is great
9:03
Speaker 1: to hear once again Cuban leveraging his knowledge and his
9:10
Speaker 1: network and his fame to bring more attention to what
9:14
Speaker 1: it means to be a true cost plus drugs on
9:19
Speaker 1: this what they're calling the Swift. The Swift the RX
9:23
Speaker 1: platform to process prescriptions and develop new employer based drug
9:28
Speaker 1: benefit programs. I love it. It's shaking up the PBMs
9:33
Speaker 1: and I wanted to bring it to your attention. If
9:38
Speaker 1: there is other news in this week in pharmacy that
9:41
Speaker 1: you'd like to partner with us on, if you have
9:45
Speaker 1: launched any kind of publication, whether that is a podcast,
9:50
Speaker 1: a newsletter, something that you'd like more exposure on here
9:55
Speaker 1: at this Week in Pharmacy. We're all always wanting to
9:58
Speaker 1: collaborate and being able to leverage what you're doing out
10:01
Speaker 1: there in the communities and in your health systems and
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Speaker 1: in specialty pharmacy, and in compounding, to set aside the
10:10
Speaker 1: status quo and do something different and do something innovative.
10:14
Speaker 1: We have a wonderful fourth of July episode today. I'm
10:20
Speaker 1: excited that you're here. I'm excited that you're listening. Hopefully
10:23
Speaker 1: this is going to be a short a short episode.
10:28
Speaker 1: This is going to be short for today's episode, but
10:32
Speaker 1: we want to bring you an interview with Scotty Ssike's
10:37
Speaker 1: special interview with Scotty, and then a follow up. We're
10:41
Speaker 1: going to have First Data Bank and their team on
10:44
Speaker 1: all this and more coming up on twerks.
10:51
Speaker 3: Welcome to this Week in Pharmacies, fourth of July special
10:54
Speaker 3: wishing all our pharmacists in pharmacy professionals a happy Independence Day.
11:02
Speaker 3: Coming up, we have an interview with Scottie Sikes from
11:05
Speaker 3: Sikes in Company with our host, founder and CEO of
11:08
Speaker 3: the Pharmacy Podcast Network, Todd Yuri.
11:34
Speaker 1: To be celebrating this weekend. What are you going to
11:37
Speaker 1: be doing this weekend?
11:39
Speaker 4: Well, we're taking a whole family trip to the mountains. Well,
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Speaker 4: nineteen of us, so that should be interesting to celebrate
11:47
Speaker 4: two point fifty. So it's going to be interesting. Nineteen
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Speaker 4: folks in one house. We'll see how that goes, but
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Speaker 4: it'll sounds fun.
11:58
Speaker 1: Text me that address just in case anything to do.
12:01
Speaker 1: Hopefully I can cook some barbecuers. Absolutely, I'm excited I
12:05
Speaker 1: don't know what we're doing. I think we're gonna stick
12:08
Speaker 1: around the southwestern Pennsylvania area. We've spent way too much
12:14
Speaker 1: money on our pool. I don't know. We'll have to
12:17
Speaker 1: ask you later if that's a write off somehow dropped
12:20
Speaker 1: like six grand into a new liner and all this
12:24
Speaker 1: other craft that we have. So we're just trying to
12:26
Speaker 1: enjoy Porchville and being at home for the holiday. But
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Speaker 1: nothing all with that. Yeah, no, nothing at all, nothing
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Speaker 1: at all. I can't believe. I looked up this morning.
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Speaker 1: It's July third, Friday, and I could not believe, blew
12:46
Speaker 1: me away that we are already halfway through twenty twenty six.
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Speaker 1: And I blinked, and we're here, and it's just like, goodness, gracious.
12:56
Speaker 1: We just got back from a Kessen Ideas share. I
12:59
Speaker 1: got to interview the og of Pharmacy Accounting all in PSYCHS.
13:05
Speaker 1: If you haven't heard that, you definitely look it up.
13:08
Speaker 1: And it's a great interview. And now we're headed into
13:12
Speaker 1: some other conferences. But the conference season always is a
13:16
Speaker 1: red flag for me. It's like, hey, it's midyear, Like,
13:20
Speaker 1: what have you? What goals did you set in January
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Speaker 1: that you either a haven't started like continuing my exercise
13:29
Speaker 1: regime that I promised I would do or be if
13:32
Speaker 1: it's something in your business. So I don't know. If
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Speaker 1: I'm a pharmacy owner and I'm facing the same thing
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Speaker 1: that I just said, I just woke up and I'm
13:43
Speaker 1: just like, holy crap, it's July third already. What at
13:47
Speaker 1: this point? What's what are good practices as a as
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Speaker 1: a pharmacy owner to down to do a double check
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Speaker 1: on ourselves.
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Speaker 4: Well, you know, obviously from where I sit on the
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Speaker 4: accounting and TAC space, you know now would be a
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Speaker 4: good time to check your your books and records, make
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Speaker 4: sure you're clean up to date. You've got good numbers
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Speaker 4: going you know what's going on so far this year.
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Speaker 5: Uh.
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Speaker 4: You You've got a good handle on margin expenses, income
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Speaker 4: cash flow, so you've got you got a good feel
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Speaker 4: for that. You know, you know what your weaknesses are,
14:24
Speaker 4: you know where your strengths are. You need you know
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Speaker 4: what you need to be improving on. You know how
14:30
Speaker 4: this year has turned out for you in terms of
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Speaker 4: MFP or or whatever it is. So you know that
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Speaker 4: that's where you need to be right now. That's where
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Speaker 4: you need to have a good comfort level for where
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Speaker 4: you are so far this year, where it is you
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Speaker 4: want to go uh for the second half, and then
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Speaker 4: that will tee you up nicely into maybe some tax
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Speaker 4: planning conversations with your advisors going into the third fourth
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Speaker 4: quarter here.
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Speaker 1: So the attitude and the energy at at several of
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Speaker 1: the conferences, we're going to be getting ready for thought
15:11
Speaker 1: spots and Chorus thought Spot at the end of July
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Speaker 1: coming up. But McKesson Ideas Share we were embedded in
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Speaker 1: IPC's booth. There's such a good partner to us. The
15:23
Speaker 1: energy and attitude was night and day from last year's
15:28
Speaker 1: Ideas Yere and the hope is back, and the hope
15:33
Speaker 1: is back, and I hope that the listeners that are
15:36
Speaker 1: listening in feel the same way. But there have been
15:40
Speaker 1: there have been products and services that have been successfully
15:44
Speaker 1: implemented in our independent community pharmacy space that's working and
15:48
Speaker 1: it's bringing in new revenue and it has nothing to
15:51
Speaker 1: do with a dispensing fee and it has nothing to
15:54
Speaker 1: do with a PBM, and I'm excited about that. We're
15:58
Speaker 1: talking about remote page monitoring supplements that are now having
16:04
Speaker 1: a lot more data behind them, like from full Script
16:06
Speaker 1: for example, we're we're seeing clinical services getting paid for outcomes.
16:14
Speaker 1: Is A is a pharmacy management system. It's really pressing
16:17
Speaker 1: on that having different things that are coming out of that.
16:21
Speaker 1: What other cash based systems are you seeing getting a
16:24
Speaker 1: lot of traction and and and I think where some
16:26
Speaker 1: of this excitements coming from.
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Speaker 4: No, Todd, I completely agree. This year has been really
16:33
Speaker 4: completely different than the prior year. The MFP has been
16:35
Speaker 4: a lot better than a lot of folks expected payments
16:39
Speaker 4: a little more timely. I'm hearing, you know, the margins
16:42
Speaker 4: are they're they're actually making money on many of these
16:46
Speaker 4: instead of losing money. So that right there's had a
16:49
Speaker 4: big kind of psychological I guess impact and a positive
16:53
Speaker 4: impact to margin. But you know, we're seeing margins relatively
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Speaker 4: hold steady, maybe increase slightly this year. And like you said,
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Speaker 4: there's certainly some other types of services pharmacies are continuing
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Speaker 4: to expand into. And again, the list of different options
17:11
Speaker 4: out there is is very wide. You know, you've got supplements,
17:14
Speaker 4: you got the clinical, you got long term care, home,
17:17
Speaker 4: whatever it is. But we're definitely seeing a lot of
17:22
Speaker 4: activity in the compounding space.
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Speaker 1: It's it's kind of it's kind of mind.
17:26
Speaker 4: Blowing the activity in the compounding area and the opportunities there,
17:31
Speaker 4: the five O three B opportunities that are available to
17:35
Speaker 4: your retail setting your even the retails getting into some
17:40
Speaker 4: form of compounding. You've got the potential peptides that are
17:44
Speaker 4: hopefully going to be coming out soon, maybe in this month.
17:49
Speaker 4: So compounding getting a lot of tracks. We're hearing a
17:52
Speaker 4: lot of activity there. And you know, you if you
17:54
Speaker 4: go to the compounding conferences, there's more people than ever
17:58
Speaker 4: at these shows as well. So don't see that slowing down.
18:02
Speaker 4: I see that custom medication, that wellness type patient profile
18:08
Speaker 4: that's going to continue to expand, I think. And you know,
18:11
Speaker 4: people want wellness, they want custom medication, they want what's
18:16
Speaker 4: for them, and they're going to pay for it. And
18:21
Speaker 4: you know, those those opportunities are just going to continue
18:23
Speaker 4: to grow, I think. And pharmacies are the first stop.
18:26
Speaker 4: Your pharmacy is the first stop. You guys are the
18:29
Speaker 4: most accessible, most trusted healthcare professionals. You're right there on
18:34
Speaker 4: the front line. You've got the you know, you've got
18:37
Speaker 4: all the opportunity of the world to lean into this area.
18:40
Speaker 4: Whether again that's whatever services may may may you provide
18:46
Speaker 4: in that area.
18:48
Speaker 1: So I have also seen the expansion of home care
18:54
Speaker 1: in long term care pharmacy at home specifically, a lot
18:57
Speaker 1: more of our independent community pharmacies are saying, what do
19:00
Speaker 1: I have to put into place to be and reimbursed
19:04
Speaker 1: for long term care official services and having all the
19:09
Speaker 1: stipulations that you have to follow in order to be
19:12
Speaker 1: paid those rates and those differences, and then the door
19:17
Speaker 1: has opened to bring back you and I have been
19:20
Speaker 1: talking about organizations like Happier at Home for three or
19:24
Speaker 1: four years now, but bolting on a home care services
19:29
Speaker 1: agency to your pharmacy where you're saying some bathing, some shopping,
19:35
Speaker 1: some light cleaning, doing some things for the person in
19:39
Speaker 1: the home that's already in need of these services. Are
19:42
Speaker 1: there any other bolt businesses or bolt on businesses that
19:47
Speaker 1: you've seen arise? And one of the examples I've heard
19:50
Speaker 1: from Tennessee shout out to Senator Reeves, Senator Shane Reeves.
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Speaker 1: His family is long time long term care pharmacy owners
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Speaker 1: and and his bolt on was the infusion business and
20:05
Speaker 1: and how infusion is is kind of the pharmacists who
20:09
Speaker 1: better to control the clinical side of what is infusion
20:14
Speaker 1: management and taking orders from physicians and kind of executing
20:19
Speaker 1: with a lot of intelligence. But are there other businesses
20:21
Speaker 1: that you've heard of out there that are that are
20:23
Speaker 1: bolt on.
20:26
Speaker 4: There? We I've seen some Central film models. I mentioned
20:33
Speaker 4: the five oh three B. I wouldn't say those were
20:34
Speaker 4: a bolt on, but maybe a little add ons if
20:37
Speaker 4: you will.
20:39
Speaker 5: Uh.
20:39
Speaker 4: Yeah, We're definitely seeing infusion activity and I don't believe
20:44
Speaker 4: that's gonna slow down because if you look at the
20:47
Speaker 4: FDA drug list coming down the pipe, it's gonna it's all.
20:51
Speaker 4: I think more than half is infusion drugs. And so
20:56
Speaker 4: there is definitely a future in the near future where
21:01
Speaker 4: the infusion is going to the growth in that area
21:04
Speaker 4: is going to explode. Obviously, that's a very specialized area.
21:09
Speaker 4: It's a complicate, it's a hard area to get into.
21:13
Speaker 4: But if that opportunity's there, you know, now would be
21:17
Speaker 4: the time to start looking at that before. In other words,
21:23
Speaker 4: you're kind of early at the gate in terms of
21:25
Speaker 4: getting into infusion. I think right now here mid twenty
21:29
Speaker 4: twenty six.
21:31
Speaker 1: I also want to make notice, and this is creative.
21:34
Speaker 1: It's on the fringe. We always like the fringe discussions.
21:38
Speaker 1: That is, there are pockets of the United States that
21:41
Speaker 1: are desperate not only for pharmacies and healthcare providers physicians,
21:47
Speaker 1: but just residents in general. And I saw some some
21:53
Speaker 1: statistics coming out of the state of Alaska of how
21:56
Speaker 1: much money that they're paying people to set up shop
22:00
Speaker 1: and open up businesses in certain parts of Alaska. And
22:04
Speaker 1: the reason why I'm saying that, and that's not the
22:06
Speaker 1: only one you can actually find this just by googling it,
22:08
Speaker 1: but places in the United States where state organizations and
22:13
Speaker 1: funding and and some new new programs that if you
22:21
Speaker 1: were an adventurer and you're like, wow, I just want
22:24
Speaker 1: to pick up and do something crazy, head on off
22:27
Speaker 1: to Alaska and open all pharmacy up because it it's
22:32
Speaker 1: I don't I don't remember what the the details are.
22:35
Speaker 1: I'm going to try to look this up and put
22:37
Speaker 1: a blog out about it because I find it fascinating.
22:40
Speaker 1: But if you open a pharmacy up, they're saying things
22:42
Speaker 1: like so much money to kind of start up, and
22:46
Speaker 1: then tax revenue that they're not going to you know,
22:49
Speaker 1: take For me, that's like, I forget what that's called
22:51
Speaker 1: probably defer, not deferred, but it's almost like a credit
22:54
Speaker 1: or something. But if there was people out there that
22:59
Speaker 1: really had that event side of them. And I know
23:01
Speaker 1: they're out there because we have pharmacists that travel the
23:03
Speaker 1: globe as people that go into missions and do some things.
23:07
Speaker 1: But I find that extremely interesting in what's happening in
23:12
Speaker 1: certain growth parts of the United States that we've seen
23:15
Speaker 1: the collapse of pharmacy through the deserts that have taken
23:18
Speaker 1: place pharmacy deserts, and that's creating new opportunities for sure.
23:23
Speaker 4: Yeah, a couple points to that. I'd say, Todd is
23:26
Speaker 4: you know, there's there's definitely you know, healthcare is a
23:31
Speaker 4: is a unique space, and there's a lot of different
23:33
Speaker 4: grants out there, perhaps in the health care space, and
23:36
Speaker 4: so I would be combing through any opportunities for grants
23:42
Speaker 4: and things like that. If you're going to be looking
23:44
Speaker 4: at startup pharmacies and maybe a desert area, you know,
23:49
Speaker 4: you might be surprised on what opportunities in terms of
23:52
Speaker 4: grants and things like that are available. But also, you know,
23:57
Speaker 4: you are seeing kind of a trend towards and I
24:00
Speaker 4: think this will be a trend that you definitely see
24:02
Speaker 4: in the coming years towards you know, these these owner
24:07
Speaker 4: operators who are exceptional operators and have been able to
24:11
Speaker 4: shift and diversify revenue and thriving in this environment, will
24:17
Speaker 4: continue to expand and have those opportunities to expand and
24:21
Speaker 4: kind of own the region of which they're in. And
24:25
Speaker 4: I think that fits perfectly for patients. I think it
24:29
Speaker 4: fits perfectly for these owner operators who are exceptional owners
24:34
Speaker 4: who can go in and deliver patient care, runs great operations,
24:40
Speaker 4: and run great businesses. So I love those opportunities. And
24:46
Speaker 4: you know where a pharmacy owner may may want to
24:50
Speaker 4: expand and grow, and I think that's going to continue
24:54
Speaker 4: for those who who want that.
24:58
Speaker 1: And then I also want to This is kind of
25:00
Speaker 1: like the thing that we usually start talking about this
25:02
Speaker 1: in September October, but let's get out front, and that is,
25:07
Speaker 1: if you are a pharmacy owner and you are looking
25:10
Speaker 1: into long term care pharmacy at home, or you are
25:13
Speaker 1: looking into expansion, or maybe you're have an opportunity to
25:17
Speaker 1: get more into assisted living or a skilled nursing and
25:20
Speaker 1: it's time to look at these packaging machines, or it's
25:24
Speaker 1: time to looking at new technology. Keep in mind that
25:28
Speaker 1: there's opportunities to do some write offs with I think
25:31
Speaker 1: it's the one seventy nine factor whatever that's called. Just
25:36
Speaker 1: to prepare and to build a business plan around it
25:39
Speaker 1: so that by the time you hit twenty twenty seven,
25:42
Speaker 1: you're up and running before January first, what's that called again?
25:46
Speaker 1: That tax benefit?
25:48
Speaker 4: So you got depreciation once a nine, you got bonus appreciation,
25:52
Speaker 4: so you know, whether you're expanding or opening a pharmacy,
25:57
Speaker 4: there is a lot of tax planning that goes around
26:01
Speaker 4: that in how you can maximize that for your individual
26:05
Speaker 4: situation to minimize tax burden and keep more of that
26:10
Speaker 4: cash in your pocket which is vital during the startup
26:14
Speaker 4: or new expansion opportunity. So there again, depreciation is obviously
26:21
Speaker 4: one of those, but there's a whole whole lot of
26:24
Speaker 4: other planning that can go behind that that you certainly
26:27
Speaker 4: should be working with a CPA advisor who can guide
26:33
Speaker 4: you in that tax area for sure.
26:35
Speaker 5: Yep.
26:37
Speaker 1: All right, Before we wrap it up the special psychs
26:41
Speaker 1: in Company two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of our country
26:46
Speaker 1: fourth of July special, I want to point out there's
26:48
Speaker 1: a blog out on the Independent Pharmacy Cooperative's website by
26:54
Speaker 1: Joe Menholtz, who's a guy we work with all the time.
26:58
Speaker 1: It's titled marketing my Pharmacy. Why storytelling matters? And I
27:04
Speaker 1: want to bring attention to this for just a second.
27:07
Speaker 1: Austin and I could really dig into this. He's your
27:10
Speaker 1: master marketer, and I love Austin's creativity. But the reason
27:13
Speaker 1: why I'm bringing this up, Scotty, is storytelling to your
27:20
Speaker 1: local congress people in your state Congress. You have, as
27:25
Speaker 1: an independent community pharmacy, such an opportunity in such a
27:29
Speaker 1: stage to bring in and if you do it, I
27:32
Speaker 1: guarantee I'm nine out of ten times they're going to say, yes,
27:35
Speaker 1: I've seen it happen here in Pennsylvania. Reach out to
27:38
Speaker 1: that state representative. You realize that twenty twenty six, coming
27:43
Speaker 1: into twenty twenty seven, there are some voting that's going
27:47
Speaker 1: to be happening in November that's going to impact some
27:49
Speaker 1: of those positions as well. So reach out to your
27:53
Speaker 1: state congress people, invite them to your pharmacy, and be
27:57
Speaker 1: prepared with a one hour pre to take them through
28:02
Speaker 1: the services that you provide. They have no idea what
28:06
Speaker 1: a pharmacy actually does for their community. I want you
28:09
Speaker 1: talking about medication adherents. I want you talking about packaging
28:13
Speaker 1: and simplicity. I want you to talk about remote patient
28:16
Speaker 1: monitoring if you're doing those types of things. But this
28:19
Speaker 1: is such an opportunity to light fires in the minds
28:22
Speaker 1: of your congress people at a time where PBM reform
28:26
Speaker 1: finally finally feels like it's finally getting some teeth. It's
28:29
Speaker 1: finally taking shape in Tennessee, it's it's been impactful in
28:34
Speaker 1: Arkansas and Ohio. So what have you heard about using
28:40
Speaker 1: your pharmacy as a stage to bring people in to
28:43
Speaker 1: really explain to our policymakers. You know what's happening in
28:47
Speaker 1: there and how it's happening to the constituents that those
28:50
Speaker 1: congress people serve.
28:52
Speaker 4: And for healthcare, well, you know we've been saying for
28:56
Speaker 4: a while. You know that pharmacy owners wear many hats.
29:00
Speaker 4: Of the hats they have to wear is advocacy. And
29:03
Speaker 4: so absolutely open the door to your congressman, get them
29:07
Speaker 4: in and get them in there and explain what you do, because,
29:10
Speaker 4: like you said, Todd, they don't have an idea, They
29:13
Speaker 4: have no idea. A lot of them go to the
29:16
Speaker 4: CVS's of the world or whatever, and so they don't
29:19
Speaker 4: know that level of care that you guys are providing
29:22
Speaker 4: to the community. So I think a lot of times
29:26
Speaker 4: it's an eye opening experience that momentum is moving in
29:29
Speaker 4: the right direction. He needs to continue to move in
29:31
Speaker 4: the right direction. I know. I have some politicians around
29:36
Speaker 4: this area that were that I know and are running
29:39
Speaker 4: for Congress and things like that, and I'm talking. I'm
29:43
Speaker 4: getting in their face and saying, when you get in there,
29:45
Speaker 4: you got to address these issues. And I'm happy to
29:48
Speaker 4: be a resource and they want to hear it. You know,
29:51
Speaker 4: whether they do anything or not, that's another thing. But
29:55
Speaker 4: you know, you got to you have got to put
29:59
Speaker 4: yourself out there and let these folks know what you're doing.
30:02
Speaker 1: Absolutely well, I've enjoyed this time with you. Scotty. Thank
30:07
Speaker 1: you guys so much for the bottom Line podcast. I
30:10
Speaker 1: listened to that one of my favorite shows that you
30:12
Speaker 1: guys put out. Shout out to Austin, shout out to Olan.
30:17
Speaker 1: You guys are rock stars. We appreciate the support that
30:20
Speaker 1: you not only give Pharmacy Podcast Network, but more importantly
30:23
Speaker 1: what you're doing for pharmacy ownership and really helping people
30:26
Speaker 1: to level up. I hope you have a wonderful two
30:30
Speaker 1: hundred and fiftieth celebration, and hopefully you you nineteen, you know,
30:38
Speaker 1: don't don't end up getting into like a family squabble
30:42
Speaker 1: and divide sides and have some kind of civil war.
30:46
Speaker 4: Well I think we'll be all right.
30:48
Speaker 5: You know.
30:49
Speaker 4: It's you got how many twelve kids or something like that,
30:52
Speaker 4: so it's just go be.
30:53
Speaker 1: It'll be part of parents against against the kids, you guys,
30:58
Speaker 1: that's tag war or something like that. Right, all right, Happy.
31:04
Speaker 4: Time, happy everything you do in the industry.
31:06
Speaker 1: Oh, thank you so much. Happy two fifty. Shout out
31:10
Speaker 1: to our pharmacy owners, our pharmacists, our technicians out there.
31:14
Speaker 1: Happy fourth of July.
31:19
Speaker 3: Feeling lost with the complexities of pharmacy accounting and.
31:22
Speaker 4: In pharmacy today, there's so many different variables and issues
31:27
Speaker 4: that impact the pharmacy, books, records, accounting, the profitabilities for
31:31
Speaker 4: or so forth. There's different components of pharmacy that have
31:34
Speaker 4: its own nuances from an accounting standpoint, and so it's
31:38
Speaker 4: it's tricky, there's no doubt about it.
31:39
Speaker 3: Ready to take your pharmacy to the next level, but
31:42
Speaker 3: don't know where to start. Psychs and Company is here
31:45
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31:49
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31:53
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31:56
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31:58
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32:00
Speaker 4: If you're interested in, you know, working with a team
32:03
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32:07
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32:10
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32:13
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32:16
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32:18
Speaker 3: With get the financial check up your pharmacy needs and
32:21
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32:25
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32:41
Speaker 1: Hey, welcome back to this Week in Pharmacy. We have
32:45
Speaker 1: an interesting interview today because there's a lot of noise
32:50
Speaker 1: about artificial intelligence impact on pharmacy operations. When we got
32:56
Speaker 1: back from ASEMBIA, we connected with Travis Hare, Harry Travis
33:02
Speaker 1: and the RX Roundtable that we're going to be doing
33:04
Speaker 1: to really expand upon where we go next, and we're
33:08
Speaker 1: also splintering a lot of our dialogue and a lot
33:13
Speaker 1: of our short podcasts from that event into reimbursement, clinical support, operations,
33:22
Speaker 1: and workflow. There's an organization that I've known of for
33:26
Speaker 1: quite some time that I'm very excited to have on
33:29
Speaker 1: this week in pharmacy First Data Bank known as FDB.
33:34
Speaker 1: We have Brad Angles in Virginia Halsey Halseley on the show.
33:41
Speaker 1: I want to welcome both of you.
33:44
Speaker 5: Thank you for having us. I'm so glad to be here.
33:47
Speaker 6: Thanks Todd, same Brad.
33:50
Speaker 1: I have been doing this for seventeen years and I
33:54
Speaker 1: think I have more first podcast interviews of individual that
34:00
Speaker 1: never did podcasts before than anyone. And now I get
34:03
Speaker 1: to add another one to that hat. So a feather
34:07
Speaker 1: in my cap that's going to say Brad Engles on it.
34:10
Speaker 6: You called me out, be kind.
34:14
Speaker 1: Oh this is this is a long time coming. I
34:19
Speaker 1: remember the biggest thing in my beginnings of pharmacy was
34:26
Speaker 1: an open database that you could get information in and
34:28
Speaker 1: out of. Based on SEQEL and all of the pharmacy
34:33
Speaker 1: management systems. When I entered pharmacy technology, they were all
34:37
Speaker 1: built for themselves. That was it. You could use the
34:41
Speaker 1: data inside the system, that was it. It was like getting
34:45
Speaker 1: information in and out of it. You could fax or
34:48
Speaker 1: you could print something and that's about it the only
34:51
Speaker 1: way you'd get the information out. So we've definitely come
34:54
Speaker 1: a long way, and FDB has also come a very
34:58
Speaker 1: long way. So you heard my opening, was really excited
35:02
Speaker 1: about the outcome and where we are in specialty pharmacy.
35:07
Speaker 1: You attended and your team attended the ncpdp's annual. It's
35:10
Speaker 1: kind of like the coupling of all the standards and
35:13
Speaker 1: where we're going and what has to change in order
35:15
Speaker 1: to play in the different sectors of pharmacy. But I'm
35:18
Speaker 1: going to start with Virginia, give us an overview of
35:22
Speaker 1: where FDB is standing today and what you're most excited
35:26
Speaker 1: about at this stage in the evolution of pharmacy care.
35:30
Speaker 5: Thank you. So, I'm really excited about our new initiatives
35:34
Speaker 5: and kind of the openness throughout the industry. I'm using
35:39
Speaker 5: AI to solve longstanding problems. So it's not just all
35:44
Speaker 5: about the technology. It's about the technology helping us to
35:48
Speaker 5: solve existing challenges. And one of the key areas that
35:53
Speaker 5: we're looking at has to do with reducing friction around
35:58
Speaker 5: prescribing and the whole describing process. And our first piece
36:03
Speaker 5: of that is related to a product called script agent,
36:07
Speaker 5: which takes the information from an ambient listening session between
36:16
Speaker 5: a provider and a patient and then detects what prescriptions
36:23
Speaker 5: the physician wants to prescribe and then tease that up
36:28
Speaker 5: using both AI to interpret the data, but then deterministic
36:34
Speaker 5: rules to use our data so that we validate that
36:39
Speaker 5: it's safe, effective, appropriate prescribing and it saves the physician time.
36:47
Speaker 5: And it's part of this what we're seeing as potential
36:51
Speaker 5: transfer of where a lot of the work is going
36:54
Speaker 5: to be happening from the physician prescribing in a a
37:00
Speaker 5: separate workflow to actually bringing it into that interactive process
37:06
Speaker 5: with the patient.
37:09
Speaker 1: Thank you for that, Virginia. It's a good place to start.
37:14
Speaker 1: I have a follow up question. This can be for
37:18
Speaker 1: you or Brad, and that is the entry. The entrance
37:24
Speaker 1: of artificial intelligence in the pharmacy industry is met with
37:29
Speaker 1: a lot of skepticism. It's met with a lot of understanding.
37:34
Speaker 1: Our pharmacists, for example, as soon as they get a
37:37
Speaker 1: prescription in any of our sectors, specialty, long term care community,
37:42
Speaker 1: it's their job to be subjectives. It's their job to
37:46
Speaker 1: save the life. It's their job to do double and
37:49
Speaker 1: triple checks. So therefore, when we started talking about AI
37:53
Speaker 1: two and five years ago, immediately pharmacists eyes rolled and
37:57
Speaker 1: they're like, well, can we really trust this? And then
38:01
Speaker 1: when we have organizations that have done nothing but use
38:05
Speaker 1: data for years, twenty years, thirty years to deliver good
38:12
Speaker 1: tools for our physicians, for our pharmacist nurses to follow
38:15
Speaker 1: up on DBD D FDB stands out because that's all
38:20
Speaker 1: you've been doing with or without AI years ago. So
38:24
Speaker 1: you're re double checking the accuracy of data. So organizations
38:28
Speaker 1: like yours that are implementing the AI. From my perspective,
38:32
Speaker 1: I'm not a pharmacist, but I feel a lot safer
38:34
Speaker 1: there than getting something that is AI from an outside
38:39
Speaker 1: organization that may not be data entrusted. And and so
38:45
Speaker 1: I want I want you to comment on the on
38:48
Speaker 1: the that fear factor of AI and how FDB is
38:53
Speaker 1: overcoming it.
38:54
Speaker 5: Yeah, so a couple of things you mentioned. One is
38:57
Speaker 5: you're going back five years, so obviously generative AI has
39:01
Speaker 5: come like just you know, eons since then, and there
39:08
Speaker 5: are a lot more kind of constraints put in place.
39:14
Speaker 5: I would say one thing is we have to determine
39:19
Speaker 5: what is the appropriate technology for the job at hand.
39:24
Speaker 5: So we're trying to focus on the so called jobs
39:28
Speaker 5: to be done and when, and we're looking at what
39:33
Speaker 5: is the appropriate way to address some of these tasks
39:38
Speaker 5: that need to be done. So I'll use an example
39:42
Speaker 5: that we're working on in the impatient environment, which is
39:48
Speaker 5: a system to help pharmacists verify medication orders in the
39:56
Speaker 5: impatient environment and free them up to do more of
40:01
Speaker 5: that clinical work and be part of that clinical team out,
40:06
Speaker 5: you know, out in front of patients and with patients.
40:11
Speaker 5: And in that case, we determined that it really made
40:15
Speaker 5: the most sense for the basic rules to assist in
40:19
Speaker 5: this order. Verification process should be deterministic because that you know,
40:25
Speaker 5: we have the data in place, we are able to
40:31
Speaker 5: to kind of predetermine what needs to be used in
40:35
Speaker 5: those processes. But on top of that, then we use
40:39
Speaker 5: AI to look at the notes so that we can
40:45
Speaker 5: bring in the appropriate information from the notes, and we
40:49
Speaker 5: use AI to provide snippets of text to really supplement
40:56
Speaker 5: those rules and leverage all of the patient specific information.
41:02
Speaker 5: So it's deciding where it's appropriate to use AI and
41:07
Speaker 5: where it does the best job, and then supplementing it
41:10
Speaker 5: as necessary. But it's also about when you're using AI,
41:16
Speaker 5: where do we need the human in the loop. Where
41:18
Speaker 5: do we need the like hundreds or thousands of test
41:24
Speaker 5: cases to really ensure what ensure that the right answers
41:30
Speaker 5: are coming about? And I would say that one key
41:34
Speaker 5: thing here is kind of don't try this at home
41:37
Speaker 5: without all of the kids, without all of the you know,
41:43
Speaker 5: kind of constraints in place, the tools, the processing, the factories,
41:49
Speaker 5: the human in the loop and so forth.
41:53
Speaker 1: All Right, So, Brad, there's the side of leveraging data
41:58
Speaker 1: in the realm of helping in the insurance realm. There's workflow.
42:06
Speaker 1: I've heard about obviously, that was a big buzzword, you know,
42:10
Speaker 1: in the in the twenty ten period of time. And
42:15
Speaker 1: but let's talk about the clinical side. There is a
42:18
Speaker 1: system that I've been really wanting to know a lot
42:22
Speaker 1: more about, and that's the Navajo system. Can you talk
42:26
Speaker 1: to me about the Navago NAVA? What nav Go navi go?
42:31
Speaker 1: I thought it was Navajo. Okay, that the NAVA the
42:34
Speaker 1: Navigo system.
42:41
Speaker 6: Well you directed that at me, Virginia. Do you want
42:44
Speaker 6: to field it?
42:47
Speaker 5: Sure? So NAVIGO is our next generation drug utilization review
42:54
Speaker 5: and what it basically does is turn the way dr
43:01
Speaker 5: has worked on its head and instead of saying, for instance,
43:05
Speaker 5: this drug interacts with this drug, or this drug is
43:08
Speaker 5: a duplicate with this drug, we look at overall, what
43:14
Speaker 5: are the potential negative clinical consequences of the regimen of
43:20
Speaker 5: drugs that a particular patient is getting. So, with a
43:23
Speaker 5: new drug that a pharmacy is fulfilling, it's tested against
43:29
Speaker 5: all the existing drugs, but it's done so in a
43:33
Speaker 5: holistic way, not siloed by type of problem like drug
43:38
Speaker 5: drug interaction, it really looks at, okay, potentially the negative
43:44
Speaker 5: clinical consequence could be rhabdomialysis or QT prolongation, and what
43:52
Speaker 5: are all the factors that could potentially contribute to that
43:58
Speaker 5: negative outcome. And we bring into consideration the context of
44:08
Speaker 5: the given patient and the given situation. So, for instance,
44:12
Speaker 5: if the patient has previously received this med and presumably
44:19
Speaker 5: has been tolerating the med and it is the patient's
44:23
Speaker 5: the same patient, the same physician, and the same set
44:27
Speaker 5: of meds, then we're not going to alert the physician,
44:31
Speaker 5: I'm sorry, the pharmacist to interrupt them. We're going to
44:37
Speaker 5: look at, okay, was what was the prior pharmacist action. Oh,
44:42
Speaker 5: it looks like the pharmacist actually contacted the physician office.
44:48
Speaker 5: The physician office said, the risk outweighs the benefit in
44:52
Speaker 5: this situation. I'm sorry, the benefit outweighs the risk in
44:56
Speaker 5: this situation, and therefore we are okay with continuing on
45:02
Speaker 5: this med and we bring that context in to move forward.
45:08
Speaker 5: The other aspect of this is making sure that there's
45:12
Speaker 5: a next best action for the pharmacists so that they're
45:16
Speaker 5: not kind of left on their own to determine, Oh,
45:19
Speaker 5: there's a problem, what should we do? It is okay,
45:23
Speaker 5: what needs to happen, you know, in an instance where
45:28
Speaker 5: you do want to get back to the physician and
45:31
Speaker 5: do some kind of check. Okay, this is a situation.
45:35
Speaker 5: I need to make that call, and here is what
45:37
Speaker 5: I need to specifically discuss with that clinician or another
45:43
Speaker 5: alternative is okay, this is something that I'm just going
45:47
Speaker 5: to discuss with the patient and say, if you see this,
45:53
Speaker 5: this potential side effect, then you're going to want to
45:58
Speaker 5: contact your doctor. So there are specific actions and then
46:05
Speaker 5: advice on what to actually say, so we're not leaving
46:07
Speaker 5: people on their own to just determine what to do.
46:11
Speaker 6: And Virginia mentioned our script agent a little while ago.
46:15
Speaker 6: As she said, we're integrating it at the EMR side
46:18
Speaker 6: at the point of prescribing, and we see real opportunity
46:23
Speaker 6: to bring more intelligence to the point of prescribing the
46:27
Speaker 6: script agent. Today we're integrating with an early adopter. It
46:32
Speaker 6: takes ambient listening summaries and operationalizes the spoken word of
46:36
Speaker 6: the physician in those encounters so that the physician is
46:39
Speaker 6: removed from being relegated into data entry within the EMR.
46:46
Speaker 6: At the very least, we see a path that will
46:49
Speaker 6: benefit pharmacists because we can structure that content and for instance,
46:56
Speaker 6: passing it through Villa fdb's e prescribing network so that
47:01
Speaker 6: it lands on the pharmacists or the pharmacy texts WORKQ
47:05
Speaker 6: and a much more structured fashion to streamline into the
47:08
Speaker 6: pharmacy management software. But in addition to that, insights like
47:12
Speaker 6: Virginia just mentioned of Navigo, if we're going to tell
47:16
Speaker 6: pharmacists to call the physician anyway, we can incorporate that
47:21
Speaker 6: intelligence way upstream at the point where the physicians composing
47:25
Speaker 6: a prescription. I mean, if we're going to tell the
47:28
Speaker 6: pharmacists at the other end to call them, call them back,
47:31
Speaker 6: like why not tell the physician at the time they're ordering,
47:33
Speaker 6: you're about to get a pharmacy call, because we're at
47:37
Speaker 6: both ends of the spectrum.
47:41
Speaker 1: I love that. I love the proactiveness to it. It
47:43
Speaker 1: saves time, It gets the medication therapy out of the
47:49
Speaker 1: log jam that is, you know, plaguing much of the
47:53
Speaker 1: workflow that's out there. What about structure, though, Brad, What
47:58
Speaker 1: about moving every thing to a very quick, accessible system.
48:06
Speaker 1: And this kind of draws back to some of your
48:09
Speaker 1: insights from your blog that you wrote, why Drug Knowledge
48:13
Speaker 1: Delivery must evolve. Talk to us about kind of the
48:16
Speaker 1: infrastructure of this.
48:18
Speaker 6: One thing comes to mind. NCPDP is a great standard
48:22
Speaker 6: for structuring codified SIG. That's the jargon of it. Unfortunately,
48:27
Speaker 6: market dynamics conspire against the pharmacy side for adoption of
48:34
Speaker 6: that standard by EMRs because the structure codified SIG standard
48:39
Speaker 6: is meant to provide a means for EMRs to communicate
48:43
Speaker 6: in a codified, discrete way. And the status quo right
48:48
Speaker 6: now is free text is flying everywhere, and the EMRs
48:53
Speaker 6: just see very little incentive. A couple of them, they
48:56
Speaker 6: get gold stars in my book. I can't name them,
48:58
Speaker 6: but they've said we're going to tackle this. We're going
49:00
Speaker 6: to code our electronic prescriptions to use structured code of
49:04
Speaker 6: fied SIG. But it's still optional as far as regulatory goes.
49:09
Speaker 6: So those VMR vendors who get gold stars, you know,
49:12
Speaker 6: they're just taking upon themselves. But the norm is EMR
49:17
Speaker 6: vendors don't leverage that. And as a example, our script
49:22
Speaker 6: agent that I mentioned, like one thing it will be
49:25
Speaker 6: able to do is structure that prescription using that standard,
49:30
Speaker 6: and especially if it's passing those scripts go to villa,
49:34
Speaker 6: we can maintain the integrity, the structured integrity of the
49:37
Speaker 6: script from start to finish, and we can participate as
49:42
Speaker 6: a member, as an active member of the ecosystem that
49:45
Speaker 6: has touch points at the point it's created, that it's
49:48
Speaker 6: transmitted and that it's received to really close the loop
49:53
Speaker 6: on the entire thing and encourage the adoption of standards
49:58
Speaker 6: and discourage the garbage in, garbage out that all pharmacies are, well,
50:03
Speaker 6: many pharmacies suffer from every day.
50:08
Speaker 1: The clinical access to information and trusting that the information
50:15
Speaker 1: is correct and as usable is really important. It's almost
50:20
Speaker 1: it brings it to the surface. The pharmacist spent six
50:25
Speaker 1: eight you know, sometimes twelve years depending on what sector
50:29
Speaker 1: of pharmacy that they went into to learn, but then
50:32
Speaker 1: having something to refresh that knowledge on the fly, I
50:37
Speaker 1: think is really the future of how technology is going
50:40
Speaker 1: to embrace our pharmacists in different sectors. I'm interested in
50:47
Speaker 1: hearing more about Navigo because I firsesee it continuing to
50:55
Speaker 1: evolve based on disease state management. And of course we
51:00
Speaker 1: could spend all day in the rare disease place of
51:03
Speaker 1: how valuable that this is going to be. But where's
51:06
Speaker 1: the starting point in teaching a pharmacist who is very
51:12
Speaker 1: independent in making decisions that you know that is a
51:18
Speaker 1: very sensitive decisions that they're making. Where's the starting point
51:22
Speaker 1: to learn to use such such technologies and to and
51:27
Speaker 1: to get them quickly comfortable with it, Because, like I said,
51:31
Speaker 1: we know that pharmacists start, as they should be, are
51:34
Speaker 1: apprehensive of new stuff.
51:37
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, there's always going to be that learning
51:42
Speaker 5: curve where you're getting used to something new, and for
51:46
Speaker 5: sure with Navigo, it is a different paradigm and people
51:52
Speaker 5: had to get used to it. The feedback we get
51:55
Speaker 5: now is incredible in terms of pharmacists liking this more
52:03
Speaker 5: holistic approach to providing information about what the potential problems
52:10
Speaker 5: are with the medication and the context around that given
52:16
Speaker 5: patient and kind of what's come before. So, yeah, there
52:20
Speaker 5: are pharmacists that start to use it, and we have
52:26
Speaker 5: heard that then they want to come back to using it.
52:30
Speaker 5: If say a student was using it and then they
52:33
Speaker 5: graduated went to a different pharmacy that wasn't using it,
52:37
Speaker 5: then they want to come back. Or they moved to
52:40
Speaker 5: mail order and now they want to bring it to
52:42
Speaker 5: mail order. So we've definitely gotten that feedback. But I
52:45
Speaker 5: think to a certain extent, we as a discipline, all
52:49
Speaker 5: of us in this segment were somewhat doing a disservice
52:55
Speaker 5: to that pharmacist on the front lines by giving this
52:59
Speaker 5: information in a hectic environment without giving more clear cut
53:05
Speaker 5: guidance on Okay, how how are you expected to react
53:10
Speaker 5: to this? Yes, of course you have all of that
53:13
Speaker 5: training in your clinical judgment, but you don't really want
53:16
Speaker 5: to be out there, you know, out on a limb
53:20
Speaker 5: by yourself saying this is how I'm going to handle this,
53:23
Speaker 5: this is how I'm going to handle that in the moment,
53:26
Speaker 5: in this hectic environment. We want more standard of care,
53:31
Speaker 5: and I think based on the reaction we've had, there's
53:35
Speaker 5: a great appreciation for that more more holistic information, more
53:42
Speaker 5: explicit guidance.
53:44
Speaker 6: And I'll add that I can no longer count on
53:47
Speaker 6: one hand the number of significant pharmacy players who I've
53:51
Speaker 6: had conversations with related to AI. They want the director
53:57
Speaker 6: of pharmacy at one of these institutions and said, we'd
54:00
Speaker 6: be negligent if we weren't exploring leveraging AI. But they
54:05
Speaker 6: are also all responsible in their approach, and they're all
54:08
Speaker 6: looking for the opportunities to assist with some of the
54:14
Speaker 6: more repeatable route, lower stakes operational challenges. Virginia use the
54:21
Speaker 6: word friction. They're starting with those because it makes more
54:25
Speaker 6: sense to try to bring some level of automation or
54:30
Speaker 6: assistance to assist those people with their human decisions, but
54:34
Speaker 6: not overwhelm them and reduce the amount of attention and
54:37
Speaker 6: the cognitive load placed on everyone out there who's drowning
54:42
Speaker 6: and all the requirements of the day to day. So
54:45
Speaker 6: they're beginning in a responsible, conscious way. And for instance,
54:50
Speaker 6: we have Medproof MCP, which we launched earlier this year.
54:54
Speaker 6: The entire the intention behind that product is to ground
54:59
Speaker 6: agent with deterministic curated content rather than have these various
55:07
Speaker 6: agentic ambitions use just the training data for the model provider.
55:13
Speaker 6: Because MCP is a means by which agents can reach
55:17
Speaker 6: into a tool belt and use content outside of their
55:20
Speaker 6: training data that's more updated, that's curated, that's deterministic. So
55:24
Speaker 6: that's the point of medproof MCP is to equip those
55:28
Speaker 6: agents with something beyond their training data and the probabilistic
55:33
Speaker 6: limitations of the nature of those llms.
55:37
Speaker 5: And just to add on, MCP or model Context Protocol
55:44
Speaker 5: is a standard to guide the lllms or the agents
55:51
Speaker 5: to in certain situations. Don't guess, don't hallucinate, but you
56:00
Speaker 5: you have of you agent, you have this tool available
56:04
Speaker 5: to you and use it in these circumstances where you're
56:08
Speaker 5: looking for certain kinds of drug information.
56:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, the pattern pattern recognition in safety feel of this
56:20
Speaker 1: is exactly what I think our pharmacists want to hear.
56:23
Speaker 1: And it's doubling back on how FDB helped to manage
56:28
Speaker 1: data before the advent of of of AI. So it's
56:33
Speaker 1: like you were ready for this when it when it
56:36
Speaker 1: started to become something, and that's FDB medproof MCP Model
56:44
Speaker 1: Context Protocol, and that's one of the services that I
56:49
Speaker 1: didn't know about, so we might actually have to have
56:52
Speaker 1: you back. There's another one that I'm going to preface
56:55
Speaker 1: called pharmacogenomic CDs, and pharmacogenomics is fascinating to me. I
57:02
Speaker 1: see a drug development on the fly in the future
57:07
Speaker 1: where we have someone being able to take a cheek
57:10
Speaker 1: swab test and get results quickly and then have a
57:14
Speaker 1: pharmacist react to the development of a medication and on
57:19
Speaker 1: the fly, like with a with a three D printer
57:22
Speaker 1: of types. But that could be for another podcast for sure,
57:25
Speaker 1: But this has been a great podcast. Yeah, that's the
57:31
Speaker 1: one I like. We have a farming coache, you know,
57:33
Speaker 1: mixed podcast on the network, so that'll be where I'm
57:36
Speaker 1: going to insert you guys into that discussion. That'll be
57:38
Speaker 1: so much fun. Yeah, Brad, you did an excellent job
57:43
Speaker 1: on your first show, and I don't want this to
57:46
Speaker 1: be your last year. Have to promise to come back.
57:50
Speaker 6: Okay, you got me. That sounds good.
57:53
Speaker 5: We're we gonna talk a little bit more about the
57:56
Speaker 5: presentation that Brad gates.
58:01
Speaker 1: We actually I'm looking at the time of it and
58:04
Speaker 1: we're coming up on we actually have to wrap up,
58:08
Speaker 1: but we definitely have inroads. Susan has set up some
58:12
Speaker 1: times for us to extend a lot of deeper dive
58:16
Speaker 1: discussions that will also incorporate incorporate the presentation visually so
58:21
Speaker 1: that we can give people a YouTube experience as well
58:25
Speaker 1: as the podcast experience. Yeah, so let me wrap it up.