Q&A: Pharmacists Boost Team Safety Through Communication

In the rapidly evolving landscape of pharmacy management, leadership strategies are increasingly focusing on emotional intelligence and team communication. Kristen Jones, PharmD, AVP of professional liability strategic operations at the Pharmacists Mutual Insurance Company, is challenging traditional workplace approaches by emphasizing the critical role of transparent communication and continuous learning in creating high-performing pharmacy teams.

Kristen Jones, PharmD, discusses leadership strategies in pharmacy management that prioritize emotional intelligence and communication for enhanced team performance and patient care. | Image Credit: Drazen - stock.adobe.com

Jones's insights come at a time when pharmacies are facing unprecedented challenges, from staffing shortages to complex medication regimens. Her approach goes beyond standard operational metrics, arguing that building a culture of open dialogue and professional development can significantly improve patient safety, employee engagement, and overall pharmacy performance. By encouraging managers to provide context for organizational changes, invest in ongoing education, and implement structured performance review processes, Jones offers a comprehensive framework for pharmacy leaders seeking to transform their workplace dynamics.

Drug Topics®: How do you prepare your existing team for staff transitions to maintain team morale and continuity of care?

Kristen Jones, PharmD: Again, this goes back to the emotional intelligence piece and communication. I like to think about talking about starting with why I think that's a really great concept, and it really allows for teams to understand why we're making a change. So maybe we're adding another employee, maybe we're just changing a process, but when we talk to our teams about those things, they feel included, and then you automatically will get buy in from those team members so that they know what's happening, why it's happening, and it gives them a chance to process it and even maybe make recommendations or give feedback as far as what they think about that change.

Drug Topics: How do you encourage continuous professional development and learning within your pharmacy team to ensure they remain current with best practices and adapt to evolving patient care needs?

Jones: I definitely think again it starts with the culture. So, you as a manager or a pharmacist, how are you showing what education opportunities that you're taking? What are you doing to maybe even just educate the people within the pharmacy, maybe when there's just a little bit of a break, and you can talk about certain medications and why they're why they're used, and I think that technicians that maybe don't have the more in-depth training, when you give them those little nuggets of information, it actually improves the safety within your pharmacy because they understand why somebody's getting a certain drug. Well, that's for their heart, okay. Well, now I know, and it triggers in my mind. So I think it's just really again, it goes back to that culture piece. Are you taking CEs [continuing education]? Are you involved in your association? Are you sending your pharmacists or your technicians to CE classes or suggesting classes so that you guys as a group within the pharmacy can remain not only compliant but also understand what's happening within the industry?

Drug Topics: How do you approach managing performance within your team? What methods do you use to provide constructive feedback, recognize achievements, and address underperformance, always with an eye on improving patient outcomes?

Jones: This really goes back to that HR [human resources] training and making sure that you have some sort of plan in place. So what is your HR plan? Do you regularly have performance reviews scheduled, and do you complete those with your employees? Also, I think it's about setting goals with each and every individual employee as part of their performance review and then assessing them against those goals and whether or not they achieved them, or maybe the goal changed, but they achieved something else that we can recognize, and the key with performance reviews is that really goes back to the situation where you might end up in some sort of lawsuit, maybe for a wrongful termination, or problems you're having with an employee. If you have regular documentation that you've had these performance reviews, perhaps you've put someone on a performance improvement plan, and there's good documentation of that and understanding that they understood that, then you can a lot of times avoid lawsuits based on the good documentation and communication.

Drug Topics: Is there anything else you would like to add?

Jones: I think that the key to the team is really about communication and leadership and setting the tone early. If you again have a pharmacy culture in which you're there to take care of patients or whatever you want your culture and your message to be, that's going to really come across with your employees as well. I think that sometimes we get in, we get stuck in a rut, and maybe we don't get those performance reviews done, or we get some disagreements going on within the pharmacy about what things are happening and just really addressing those right away and letting everyone that works there know that we are an open communication pharmacy, and we're not going to have those disagreements that go on; we're going to address the issues right away.

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