The Pharmacy Owner’s Dashboard: What Are You Trying to Solve?

Be Inquisitive, Be Knowledgeable; Be Receptive to Change.

Ask yourself … Do you proactively manage your pharmacy decisions or are your decisions a reaction to an event? Information is the key to making decisions about your pharmacy but, with so much the data; so many scripts; all the invoices that come from suppliers, it can be difficult to know where to begin. Stephen Covey said it best in “The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People” … begin with the end in mind. In the context of obtaining financial information… The end in mind is the dashboard.

What is the objective of the owner’s dashboard?

The short answer is to consolidate the information you need to make decisions in your pharmacy on a single page to identify the good, the bad and the ugly. Once this information is obtained, you can improve on what is already good and you can fix what needs fixing. This will improve your ability to predict the future success of your pharmacy. Ask yourself … What would you do differently today if you knew the impact it would have on your tomorrow?

 What are the components of the owner’s dashboard?

There are two key components to the dashboard:

1. Qualitative; AND
2. Quantitative analysis

In the qualitative component, you will provide yourself with a narrative to summarize what happened in the pharmacy in the last month. This is where you need to be brutally honest with yourself. Ask yourself the following:

1. What is working?
2. What would a “fantastic” month have looked like?
3. What is the 1 thing I can start doing tomorrow to improve pharmacy results toward fantastic?

The quantitative component is your scorecard. The quantitative gets broken down further into two components … the clinical and operational metrics. The clinical metrics include, but are not limited to:

# of scripts

# adaptations

# flu Shots

# smoking cessations

etc

This is not a one size fits all as to the specifics. Choose the specific metrics based on the goals of your pharmacy and/or where you need to see information on a regular basis. The operational component includes the financial information provided by “Binny.” The key components include:

1. Revenue and Gross Profit segregated by Dispensary
2. Clinical Services and Front Store metrics and with Expenses broken down by Wages
3. Occupancy and General & Administration.

One further element is context. Any single point of reference to any of the numbers is irrelevant. There is no way of determining what is “good” with one point of reference. If you did $250,000 of revenue in one month … is that good? To the pharmacy that typically generates $200,000 a month then, yes. To the pharmacy that typically generates $300,000 a month then, no. Context is provided by adding your “Plan” numbers; Year to Date results; Prior year’s results; Monthly trends … the trend is your friend.

What are you trying to solve?

Now that you have all this information on one page … what do you do with it?

There are three elements to a successful owner’s dashboard. They are accurate, complete and timely. To obtain optimum results, you need to adhere to reviewing the dashboard on a monthly basis within 3 weeks of the prior month end. In the review, begin with the end in mind … In this case, the end is what will make you incredibly excited about your pharmacy operations in 12 months from now? Then, ask the three questions:

1. What is working
2. What would “fantastic” look like

iii. What is the 1 thing I can start doing tomorrow in the pharmacy that will make me genuinely excited about my pharmacy operations in 12 months from now

What do you think about this story from the back office of the pharmacy? Can you see the power of being inquisitive about your financial results? For more financial management stories and strategies, please connect with us to learn more about how you can create increased profitability in your pharmacy and provide better patient care.