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Where Two Worlds Meet
One of the biggest challenges facing independent community practice today is the struggle to achieve the right balance between the retail and professional aspects of pharmacy. Hilton Silberg, a well-known pharmacist in the Hamilton area, has found a way to successfully combine the two sides of community practice together. Although his pharmacy offers a wide variety of discount retail goods, the professional character of the pharmacy has not been diminished in any way in large part to an innovative pharmacy design and a wide array of services provided by his pharmacy team.
With his experience as a pharmacy design consultant and the knowledge he has acquired operating pharmacies in the past, Hilton opened his third Day/Night Pharmacy in August 1997. The new store is located in a new subdivision on the outskirts of Hamilton. The new store allowed him to implement innovative ideas, as he continued to search for what he describes as 'the' design. The major focus of the layout of the latest Day/Night Pharmacy was the creation of two completely separate entities within the store: a professional service area and an extensive retail merchandise section. As Hilton said, 'You can have a pharmacy that has product diversity, in other words, a mini-department store and still run a very professional dispensary. It just depends on your philosophy and the people you have working for you'.
Getting the Pharmacist Involved
The first major change was to place the dispensary at the front of the store in view of everyone who enters Day/Night Pharmacy. This was done to ensure that pharmacy remains the primary focus of the business. The positioning of the dispensary also ensures that patients have easy access to their pharmacist.
The effectiveness of the dispensary location was also improved by the innovation of its design. Compared to a traditional style dispensary with a long working counter, Day/Night Pharmacy was designed with two smaller working spaces or islands. This allows the pharmacist to move freely about the dispensary and giving them better access to the OTC section. Various exits from the dispensary were created to further enhance the pharmacist's accessibility to the OTC section. As a result, pharmacists...