*edited for clarity
Hi Chalana.
So can you tell me a little bit about your role at Empower and what a day in the life doing your role looks like?
I deal with incidences in different reports, reading them thoroughly, reaching out to the patient, the clinics, or provider’s office, and working through them trying to solve the problem the incident entails.
Is that what you like about your job?
I do like the investigative part of it, just trying to figure out when this says it was delivered, but you look at the picture that was sent, and the patient says, “Well, that’s not my house.”
Kind of like a detective, you sleuth around until you find where the issue actually originated.
Yes, ma’am.
That’s pretty cool. I didn’t realize that’s what an incident coordinator does, that’s very interesting. So is this what you’ve always done?
No, ma’am, I was in retail for a long time.
Which was horrible and I really wanted to get out of retail. I stayed at home and did prior authorizations for insurance companies and that kind of thing.
And then when I interviewed with Brian and Shanora and Caitlin, I was like, oh, my God. I love this.
There are so many different things to being a pharmacy tech that you don’t realize.
And this is million times better than working in retail.
Oh, that’s awesome.
So what’s your favorite thing then about this role specifically?
The team, the Incidence team and Shanora are fantastic.
Who’s your favorite person to work with on the team?
Shanora is your ride or die like she wants to make sure if you’re right-handed, left-handed – she’s going to be an extension of that right arm, left arm, whatever.
She’s always there.
You can reach out to her even if she’s off already.
She’s a magnificent supervisor. You can’t get any better.
I feel like that’s such a common thread with everyone I’ve chatted with so far is the team that they’re on and the folks that help them do their job have really empowered them to be their best self, do their best at their job and grow with the company and learn more about the role itself.
Right.
And it’s never about berating you for the bad things.
It’s about pumping you up.
You’re doing all of this, and there’s all of this good, all this improvement – and this much bad.
And this is what we need to do or what we can improve on.
But you never feel like they’re putting you down or anything.
So with those learning moments, what would you say something that you’ve learned that has had a big impact on you or your role as you’re growing in this new role?
Insurance and ins and outs of making these reports the best that they can be for everyone. You should be able to give an incident number and the goal is for you to be able to fully understand what happened from the reporting.
And, I’m still learning something every day.
There’s always something new to learn, especially since we’re getting all this great new leadership in, and they’ve got new ideas to bring to the table too. That’s something I personally really love about here is there are always new things to explore, new things to learn.
And I like that there is opportunity to cross train to be able to help other departments.
I know one of our benefits is in six months you get to potentially explore new roles.
It sounds like something that’s like something you might want to explore too.
It’s not that I want to change my position, but I would like to cross train so that I can better understand the reports better.
So you can improve your own work by learning all these different parts of empowering all the different teams.
Right, right.
Oh, I think that’s amazing.
I know you answered this a little, but I would love to hear in your own words what patient care means to you?
Getting patients the things that they need is overall the most important aspect of all of this. The quality of what we put out is top notch because it needs to be.
And we need to always treat them with respect, to listen with open ears before we make a judgement. If we’re not patient, we don’t have anything.
Absolutely. So what’s your favorite thing that you’ve achieved here, whether that’s related to patients, related to this growth, maybe related to that connecting to the different aspects of the company to be better your job, what’s your favorite thing that you’ve achieved?
I got recognition last month for being the most improved.
When you think about incident reports, you think: I’m opening this, I’m filling out drop downs, I’m putting in somebody’s name.
That’s not all there is to it. The quality of the reports has to be there.
That recognition of being the most improved on that incidents team was very key for me.
I love that.
Well, congratulations on most improved.
Thank you.
That’s definitely something worth celebrating. Was your name on the screens in the lunchroom?
Thank you.
Oh, I don’t know, I’m not there.
Oh my gosh, I’ll have to keep an eye out.
And if I see it, I’ll take a picture of it and send it to you.
Well, thank you. I appreciate it.
I’m excited to get my Empower jacket so I can wear it.
Yeah, I know we’ve got good swag options. Ever since they opened up that store.
I’m like, oh, I need me one of those little cups, or I need a little water bottle.
Yeah, we got to pick something that was our reward for whatever we won. And that’s what I picked was the black jacket that has the pharmacy logo on it.
Love that.
So what is something you’re looking forward to in the future and how is Empower helping you to achieve that?
Something I’m looking forward to just growing with the company and seeing possibly what other opportunities there may be, but I just would like to cross train. You know the majority of us are pharmacy techs, and there’s so many different roles for pharmacy techs.
Yeah.
OK, last question, what is your favorite benefit or employee benefit that you utilize here at Empower?
I mean our time is very flexible, as long as I stay productive and make sure that my tasks that I’m assigned for the day are completed, there is flexibility.
Yeah, you’re definitely the agent over your own time and having that responsibility to use your time wisely, but trusting you to do that as well is great.
It’s really nice.
I worked for a company couple years ago and it was you were on camera for the whole entire time. It was just it was like being in jail.
Yeah, I hear you.
Alrighty. Well, I really do appreciate you taking the time and chatting with me.
It was so great getting to know you.
Yes ma’am, have a great rest of your day.
