Alice Taku, PharmD, serves as Director of Pharmacy for Promise Hospitals of Louisiana.
On May 3rd, Alice will serve on the panel "Patient Satisfaction and Cost Reduction in Pharmaceutical Care" at Becker's Health IT + Clinical Leadership + Pharmacy conference. As part of an ongoing series, Becker's is talking to healthcare leaders who plan to speak at the conference, which will take place May 2-4, 2019 in Chicago.
To learn more about the conference and Alice's session, click here.
Question: Healthcare takes a lot of heat for not innovating quickly. What's your take on this?
Alice Taku: The healthcare industry like other industries could always do better from an innovation stand point. However, in recent years, healthcare has made great strides in innovating and embracing technological advancements like Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) using technology like EPIC etc., it has embraced the use of robotics and automation in medication dispensing, the use of data analytics for better patient outcomes and it has adopted improved technology in diagnostic and therapeutic modalities for patients, just to name a few. And, because healthcare deals with human life, there is always a need to exercise extra caution to get it right and not go too fast as faulty innovation or even implementation could lead to life threatening or lethal consequences. Another challenge in not innovating quickly has to do with limited availability of resources due to decreasing reimbursements and increasing cost of healthcare. This last reason often accounts for either not innovating quickly or even adopting existing innovation especially for smaller healthcare organizations.
Q: What one strategic initiative will demand the most of your time and energy in 2019?
AT: The one strategic initiative that will demand my attention this year has to do with controlling the cost of health care as it relates to pharmaceutical cost and costs associated with complying with new pharmaceutical regulations coming down the pipeline. New medications coming into the market and even already existing medications with rare usage are getting costlier. New oncology medications coming into the market have historically been priced high but with newly released antimicrobials costing as high as one thousand dollars or so a day from an acquisition stand point it is becoming difficult to control cost of pharmaceutical care. Cost of pharmaceuticals accompanied by new cost associated with building negative pressure rooms/areas to comply with USP 800 guidelines dealing with the handling of hazardous medications and cost associated with keeping up with updated USP 797 guidelines that call for stricter measures are of great concern. Time and energy are needed not only in managing and implementing all the above but taking care of the regulatory component quickly as the guidelines become effective in December of this year.
Q: Can you share some praise with us about people you work with? What does greatness look like to you when it comes to your team?
AT: I happen to work with a very stable team which is great with reference to patient care and knowledge base. There are team members that have been with the organization for decades which is a testament to their dedication to the organization and patient care. There is a team member who works every day and this associate pretty much gives up all his vacation to do so not because he must do so, but because he cares, and he wants to give back. The Chief Executive Officer for example has been in that role for about a decade and has a high retention rate due to his leadership capabilities and leadership style. Greatness to me, as far as my team or any health care team for that matter is concerned is being able to work collaboratively while putting the patient first. I always make sure I remind team members including myself that the reason we show up to work daily is for the patient and as such we owe it to ourselves to do the best we can for our patients.