As a pharmacy provider committed to serving the hospice industry, OnePoint Patient Care has a responsibility and commitment to safeguard our hospice partners, your personnel, your patients and their families from Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19).
Across the country, our local pharmacies are there for your community – and this includes our San Leandro, California pharmacy. In light of California’s “shelter in place” pronouncement, our pharmacy remains fully operational and will continue to support the Northern California hospice community during this challenging time.
While we are pleased to let you know that we have had no instances of presumed or confirmed positive cases of COVID-19, we have instituted measures to mitigate transmission and/or supply risks associated with the dispensing and delivery of hospice medications. These procedures include:
- Reinforcing employee hygiene procedures, including frequent and proper hand washing techniques for pharmacy staff and delivery personnel, properly covering coughs and sneezes, and avoiding face-touching and handshakes
- Properly cleaning all pharmacy surfaces, high traffic areas, door handles, pharmacy workstations and dispensing devices (bar code hand scanners) with disinfectant multiple times a day
- Mandatory suspension of work for any employees who are or appear symptomatic or deemed at risk
- Prohibiting non-essential visitors to our pharmacy sites
- Suspending all non-essential work travel, including visits to our hospice partner office locations unless otherwise requested
- Preventing non-pharmacy staff from entering pharmacy spaces
- Maintaining safe “social distances” between employees within pharmacies
- Developing protocols for alternative forms of delivery for any facilities that may have visitor restrictions
- Carefully monitoring supply lines and stocking up on any hospice-centric medications
- Developing risk mitigation teleworking/telecommuting plans for all OnePoint employees other than those who need to physically package medications
Local presence boosts preparedness
As the situation continues to evolve, our local presence and preparedness mean your patients will always be supported. Here are five ways our local hospice-dedicated pharmacy model is uniquely suited to support you during these challenging times:
- Reliable Inventory – You need a reliable supply of medications for your patients. We are able to custom compound hospice-specific medications, which requires specialized know-how beyond the scope of many local pharmacies. Additionally, we have experience maintaining and balancing inventory as well as dealing with shortages and disruptions.
- Better Service– We know that hospice is “high touch” care, and we believe hospice pharmacy should be a “high touch” partnership. We are the hospice industry’s ONLY fully integrated PBM, medication dispensing and same day delivery provider. When you have a question or concern, that means just one phone call to your Service Delivery Director (SDD). You can be confident that one accountable partner will serve 100% of your medication fulfillment needs.
- Adaptable and Scalable – We are able to efficiently shift resources when and where we need them, ensuring uninterrupted dispensing. For example, if one pharmacy experiences a shortage of inventory or staff, we will immediately shift dispensing to one of our 13 other sites across the country or to one of our network pharmacies. We have demonstrated this seamless remote dispensing capability in the past when hurricanes disrupted many Florida communities.
- Flexible Courier Options – We are temporarily suspending the requirement of obtaining signatures with each medication delivery to support social distancing.
- We are Part of Your Community – There’s no substitute for local pharmacists who know hospice and share your commitment to serving patients and their families during these challenging times. As always, we make it our business to be available whenever you need us, and to work together to make a difference for every patient, every day.
We continue to monitor the daily developments of the COVID-19 pandemic and will augment our plans as new information becomes available. If and when any circumstances change, we will be sure to keep you informed.