CVS's newest clusterf*ck: WeCARE

So by this point the entire company has been converted to the newest brainchild of the CVS Ivory Tower boys-WeCARE. The motto was something along the lines of "Helping us work more efficiently. So we can care more", or some such bullshit. This is somehow meant to convince us that because of this new workflow we will have all sorts of extra time to actually take care of customers. This philosophy, while certainly an ideal, is also completely unattainable from this new workflow. It has meant more pressure on the techs and the pharmacists to reach more time-related goals, all the while doing it with fewer hours budgeted. Let's not even talk about the fact that since the program rolled out the system has crashed at least half a dozen times, leading to countless hours company-wide where we were unable to service ANYONE IN ANY MANNER, Tell me how this helps us "care more."

The situation as I see it is that the workflow in a pharmacy is a little like transferring liquid from one gallon bottle into another gallon bottle by using a funnel. The problem was the receiving bottle (representing the customers) wasn't filling up fast enough from the feed bottle (representing the prescribers) because the capacity of the funnel (representing the pharmacies) was limited, Now logic would tell you that if you want to eliminate the slowdown you would increase the capacity of the funnel (put more personnel in the pharmacy). However, the fucking geniuses at corporate have reasoned that the way you improve the flow is to pour the liquid faster out of the feed bottle. Anyone who has ever tried this method realizes soon enough what happens when you do that--you spill shit all over the table.

Now add to this fabulous formula the fact that they have actually REDUCED the capacity of the funnel. Technician hours have been cut across the board by 10%, no doubt due to the notion that the new workflow is SOOOOO much more efficient that they don't need as much help. Where they came up with the conclusion that the system works better is a mystery to us all. One thing we know is it didn't come from the system developers' vast experience working in the stores. They are in the Ivory Tower and they have absolutely no fucking clue as to what it's like in the stores. All they know is that they spent millions of dollars developing and implementing this program and they have to find some kind of cost savings to justify it, so they cut labor hours to pay for it.

Once again what's going to happen is that everything will just slide along as is until there's some tragic event that comes from the fact that the new system puts more pressure on the stores to perform more work faster with less personnel. When people start dying because of the added pressures that the system puts in the stores then they might take a look at it. More likely is the real possibility that they will do whatever they need to to blame in-store personnel. They will never look at their own house to discover if perhaps things could have been done differently, In the past the operating philosophy has been to try to deflect blame. I remember a few years ago there was a death related to a mis-dispense and the company released a statement the press in a question and answer format. When they got to the question of "Does CVS time their pharmacists?" the answer was classic dance-around-the-truth bullshit where they tried to give the impression that pharmacists aren't timed or measured on their time. Anyone who knows the stores knows that nothing could be further from the truth. The whole bonus system for pharmacists is based on speed, not accuracy. The new workflow brings this into sharp focus.

More work being done faster by fewer people--a corporate manager's wet dream. A recipe for disaster in a pharmacy, however.