As your professional association, the Vermont Pharmacists Association is aware that many pharmacy teams are struggling with burnout, workplace challenges, stress, anxiety, and not feeling so "well". We have partnered with national organizations to collect data and will continue to have conversations with pharmacy teams in Vermont to understand what you are experiencing, and ideas for improving workplace wellbeing and patient care. To make a difference, we need to hear from individuals who are affected.

1. Fill out the Pharmacy Workplace And Well-Being Reporting Tool

This anonymous and confidential tool, created by APhA and NASPA, allows you to provide detailed information about pharmacy workplace practices, both positive and negative. The situations that you and your colleagues' report will help to tell a collective, powerful story that can spark change and improvement in well-being and patient safety. The results will be aggregated to create a pool of data used to influence and educate pharmacy leaders, government officials, and the public as well as advance meaningful and actionable changes.

PWWR Tool

2. Become an Advocate through the Vermont Pharmacists Association

We will continue to have meetings discussing this topic. To find out when the meetings occur, or to share your story, please email us - VPAManager@gmail.com

3. Directly Contact the Vermont Board of Pharmacy

The Vermont Office of Professional Regulation is dedicated to the protection of the public and considers operating pharmacies in an unsafe manner unprofessional conduct. If you feel that patient safety is being jeopardized by current work conditions, please contact the Vermont Board of Pharmacy and Office of Professional Regulation.

Collected Data

• National Pharmacy Workplace Survey (Reports are at the bottom of the webpage)
• District 1 (Vermont) Pharmacist Well-Being Index Results
• Research: Policy solutions to address community pharmacy working conditions

Additional Resources

• The Pharmacist's Fundamental Responsibilities and Rights - Adopted by the APhA and NASPA Boards, June 2021
• HPSO: The Pharmacist's Guide To Recognizing and Preventing Burnout
• APhA: Well-being Site Well-Being Index (Invitation Code: APhA-Membership not required to use)
• Moodfit: Tools and Insights for Your Mental Health
• APhA: Well-being During COVID-19
• National Academy of Medicine: Clinician Resilience and Well-being
• National Consensus Conference: Enhancing Well-being and Resilience Among the Pharmacist Workforce
• Pharmacist Burnout And What You Can Do About it - Elisabeth Rumley
• The Science Behind Pharmacist Burnout Is Scary: Here Is What to Do About It (pharmacytimes.com)

VT CRISIS TEXT LINE

Text “VT” to 741741

Suicide and Crisis Lifeline:

Dial 988

Vermont Department of Mental Health - How To Get Help Resources

Download the VPA Wellbeing Resource Guide

Unsafe Staffing

• There are increases in care-related complaints this year regarding unsafe care and unplanned closures. 

• If you are seeing issues, report it to the Board of Pharmacy. The Board of Pharmacy cannot hold pharmacy operators accountable unless they know about it. 

• You can do this by filling out the online form above, and be sure to identify a location or it will be screened-out. You can also type up the complaint into a document to be uploaded and note “see upload” in “complaint details” field. 

• Under Vermont Board of Pharmacy rule 26 V.S.A. § 2053, it is prohibited for a pharmacy employer to:

  • Enact policies that result in deviating from safe practice
  • Create an environment that jeopardizes patient care
  • Fail to provide mandatory rest periods for staff
  • Fail to provide resources for you to safely complete professional responsibilities
• Report violations to the Vermont Office of Professional Regulation 

• Under Vermont Department of Labor law, an employer must provide its employees

  • Opportunity to eat and use toilet facilities
  • Pay for hours worked
  • Time and private space for pumping breastmilk that is not a bathroom stall
• Report violations to the Vermont Department of Labor
  


• 
  

Additional notes on this:

• A pharmacist has independent judgement to decide whether or not there is adequate staffing to safely provide patient care. If they decide there is not adequate staffing, they can (and should) close the doors and direct patients to a different location. This is NOT patient abandonment if the reason they close the doors is inability to provide safe care.

• There is nothing in the federal PREP acts that prohibits this and state regulations specifically allow it (Rule 20.2).

• The VT Board of Pharmacy would not pursue disciplinary action against individual licenses in these cases.

Share your thoughts with us! We assembled a task force to help address these concerns. Join us, share your perspective with us, and help us address this issue! Contact VPAmanager@gmail.com