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DISRxUPT is a podcast from the Cedarville University Center for Pharmacy Innovation which explores novel advances in the practice of pharmacy. From nanotechnology to unique public health initiatives, DISRxUPT will highlight stories of pharmacists who are changing the paradigm of patient care.
Tune in for new content once a month detailing how the profession of pharmacy continues to change and how the Center for Pharmacy Innovation is playing a key role in this transformation.
Welcome to DISRxUPT, a podcast of the Cedarville University Center for Pharmacy Innovation. Today on the podcast, we're thrilled to have doctor Lydia Bailey as our guest. Lydia is a dedicated pharmacist whose work in the charitable pharmacy space is making a significant impact in her community. Join as we delve into her journey, the innovative solutions she has implemented, and the role of faith in her professional life. Welcome back listeners to Disrupt.
Justin Cole:I am so excited about talking with our guests today. We have Doctor. Lydia Bailey with us who works at the St. Vincent de Paul Charitable Pharmacy as the Pharmacy Operations Manager. I'm excited to have her on the podcast.
Justin Cole:She is has been recognized even nationally recently for innovation and leadership in pharmacy practice. And we're going to dive into all kinds of topics with her. So, Lydia, thanks for joining us on the podcast.
Lydia Bailey:Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Excited.
Justin Cole:Absolutely. So you've been really busy recently. I know. I think number one, you've been recognized with a significant award. But even more importantly, probably to you and of course, to me as well as family.
Justin Cole:And I think you've been at home with a new little one. Is that correct?
Lydia Bailey:Yep. Yep. Just had baby number five a few months ago. And, it is a challenge, but it is such a blessing. And every time I see kids now, I'm just like, Oh, I could have another one.
Lydia Bailey:Right? Well, that's great.
Justin Cole:That's great. Yeah, kids are definitely a blessing. Congratulations to you and your husband. Yeah, that's one of the things I'd love to ask about later is how do you how you balance both being a really dedicated mom and wife with all the things that you're doing in pharmacy, which are a lot. So we'll get into both of those as we move forward.
Justin Cole:But hey, one other thing I wanted to ask you about, you were recently awarded a really prestigious award, the Albert B. Prescott Pharmacy Leadership Award for early career leadership. So first, congratulations on that as well. I also just wanted to ask if you could explain a little bit about that award and the work that merited you receiving this.
Lydia Bailey:Yeah, definitely. I am so humbled to get something like this. It is really surprising. I really feel like if you have the right people in your corner to write nominations for you, that's kind of the the biggest leap to get these awards. I mean, of course, you know, you gotta do the work, but having people that are so supportive to fill out pages and pages of nomination is the part that made me the most excited just to know that I have people that would be willing to do that.
Lydia Bailey:So for me, it was, my alma mater, Ohio Northern University. I had a professor there, doctor DiPietra Maker. She really got me into underserved care in the first place, and she was the one who found this award and asked me if she could nominate me for that, gathered up people from the University of Cincinnati, people from Saint Vincent Nepal, people from, different organizations that were willing to take the time to write that. But basically, it's it's an award about someone who's graduated within the last ten years and has made an impact, in the pharmacy space. And and so it was really an excitement and a huge honor to get that opportunity.
Justin Cole:Yeah, well, certainly congratulations again. And for our listeners, that award has a number of different criteria. It includes leadership, but also innovation in pharmacy practice and education and service. And you're going to hear here very shortly how she checks all of those boxes. So again, congratulations.
Justin Cole:Okay. So let's back up and maybe talk about your journey to becoming a pharmacist. When did you first have that itch and what was your journey like?
Lydia Bailey:I love this story because in high school, I had no clue what I wanted to be. I never shadowed any professionals like you're supposed to. We didn't do those career day tests or anything. So I just I was pretty lost. And my senior year, my parents kinda sat me down, and they're like, look.
Lydia Bailey:You gotta pick something. And they kept saying, why don't you consider pharmacy? And I was like, I don't have any idea what a pharmacist does. And they said, well, it's a good career for a working mom. And I said, I don't even want kids.
Lydia Bailey:And now here I am, five kids later. But they they kinda pushed me into that. And so I just said yes because I thought, well, fine. I'll give them what they wanna hear, I guess. And I went to Ohio Northern, which is a zero to six direct entry program.
Lydia Bailey:And so I got right into pharmacy school, and I still had no clue what a pharmacist did. And I ran cross country and track for Ohio Northern, and so that's kind of all I focused on for the first few years when everyone else was getting their internships and being a good student, joining the clubs. I was not doing any of that. And then three years in, they said, you know, you really need to you kinda have to get an internship. And so I got an internship, and it was not what I was expecting.
Lydia Bailey:Really disappointing to think that this was my career cause it just wasn't what I had heard. I thought pharmacy was to help people, and and this didn't look like that at this particular site that I was at. And so almost changed majors, but went on this really God inspired mission trip to Pakistan, worked in a pharmacy over there, and that was when I was like, wait. This career could be amazing. Like, my faith doesn't have to be a separate bucket than my career because I kinda just thought it was gonna be like that.
Lydia Bailey:I'll have my my God bucket and my career bucket. And that made me sad, but I was like, well, someone's gotta do it. And, and that trip really was what I needed to say that it doesn't have to be like that. And I came back from that trip knowing that underserved care would be the style of pharmacy that I felt like I could really get behind and get passionate about. And and so it all fell into place after that.
Lydia Bailey:But I basically didn't do anything right leading up to that. God just directed my steps without me doing doing the right things, I guess, preparation wise, but it all worked out.
Justin Cole:Yeah, it absolutely has worked out. And thank God that he does direct our paths in that way. Otherwise, the plans that we would create or in some cases not create, right? Yes. Would would they always pay on comparison to the work that he's doing.
Justin Cole:So you've talked a little bit about underserved care and one of the unique avenues that you provide that is through a charitable pharmacy. So could you maybe define those terms for us underserved care and charitable pharmacy?
Lydia Bailey:Yeah, definitely. Underserved care, when I first thought of it, I thought of it like that meant a mission trip. And what I mean by that is like I was expecting, you know, the poorest of the poor. I was expecting, you know, very financially underserved. And that's the only bucket I had was just financially underserved.
Lydia Bailey:And so when I started and saw a lot of patients coming to a charitable pharmacy that didn't look financially underserved, I had to really realize and reckon that underserved care has a lot of different buckets. You can be medically underserved, and maybe you have a car and you have, you know, food on your table every night, but you still can't afford your prescriptions. You're still underserved. And so I really have grown a lot in my understanding of truly we can all be underserved in one way or another. And so that's kind of kind of what I've come to see what underserved care is.
Lydia Bailey:And then charitable pharmacy is specific in legality purposes. It just allows for community pharmacy to accept medications from different sources. So for an example, a retail pharmacy would order from one or two manufacturers, or wholesalers. We can order from wholesalers, but we can also receive donations from doctor's offices with their samples. We can receive donations from long term care facilities through a repository program, can now end up taking, personal end user donations directly from patients.
Lydia Bailey:So we've just expanded where we can get the medications from, and that's kind of the only difference. Everything else, we get audited by the board of pharmacy. So all outpatient community pharmacy standards all apply, but the main difference is where we can accept medications from. And then, of course, in our pharmacy, we don't have any controlled substances. We don't have any cash registers.
Lydia Bailey:We don't bill for insurance. So those are the other pieces that look different for us.
Justin Cole:Okay, so how did you end up in the charitable pharmacy space? What did that story look like for you after you got that doctor of pharmacy degree and you were trying to figure out the next steps in your career path?
Lydia Bailey:Yeah. I got that doctor of pharmacy degree knowing that I wanted something with underserved care or maybe global health or something along those lines. And thankfully, on my rotations, someone had pointed out, you know, there's underserved care residency programs. And so, actually, I remember calling my current boss now, Rusty Currington. He was, just finished up his residency at the time at Saint Vincent de Paul Charitable Pharmacy.
Lydia Bailey:And I called him on the phone as an appy student and said, can you tell me about this residency program? And I can still visualize on the phone. He said, you know, we get to pray with our patients. And I remember writing the word pray and triple underlining it like, wait. And that's the coolest thing I've ever heard.
Lydia Bailey:And so, that got me really excited for a residency. I was focused in underserved care. And so decided to pursue that, matched with the University of Cincinnati at St. Vincent de Paul as my practice site, and then, signed on immediately after, as a clinical pharmacist. And so that was, you know, ten years ago.
Lydia Bailey:And I've been here ever since.
Justin Cole:Time flies, doesn't it? Yeah. So I'd love to hear more about St. Vincent de Paul as an organization and then specifically about the charitable pharmacy. So how does that organization impact the community?
Lydia Bailey:Yeah, it's an incredible organization. I think the best way to do compassionate care. So it's found it was founded in France, in eighteen hundreds. And the whole purpose of its founding was neighbors helping neighbors is kind of the tagline or the theme. And it was that if someone needed help, you needed to do a home visit to meet with that person.
Lydia Bailey:And so that the assistance you provided was always a personal relationship and assistance. And you can't have one or the other. It needs to be both. And so in the eighteen hundreds, that looked like going and delivering firewood at people's homes and meeting with them or bringing them food or things like that. Now in The United States, in Cincinnati, every Saint Vincent De Paul city has a different feel.
Lydia Bailey:They can all offer different services. So ours in Cincinnati, we have a food pantry. We have rent and utility assistance. We have a bedding program. We have a rent furniture voucher program and clothing voucher program.
Lydia Bailey:And all of those are through this home visit model. So we continue that model, and we will if a neighbor calls in and says, have a need, we have a volunteer that goes to their home, meets with them, connects with them, and then says, here's a voucher for that need that you're asking for. We're gonna pay your rent this month, you know, things like that. So that same model is still happening. And then the pharmacy, we're we're known as a special work of the society.
Lydia Bailey:So every branch can kinda do their special work. And so there's only about seven now in the country that are Saint Vincent de Paul pharmacies. And so there's not that many, that have chosen to have a charitable pharmacy, although, hopefully, that that continues to grow. But, basically, the pharmacy is just a subset of that, and that's kinda the whole approach is is doing charitable care in as dignifying way as possible. People should feel like they are paying for our services because they're so good.
Lydia Bailey:They should not feel like they are lesser than by need having to ask for help or or having to say that they're underserved or need a charitable organization. So that's really the the lifeblood of kind of the of how same business model operates.
Justin Cole:I love that in all the work you do, you're breaking the mold that value is equivalent to the price, right? Everything that you're doing is high quality. It is high touch, it is impactful without being expensive. That's like the golden ticket that we're all looking for when we're trying to make a an impact on a community. So you guys have a fantastic model.
Justin Cole:So maybe you could tell us a bit more about how you ensure services provided specifically through the charitable pharmacy meet the needs of the underserved populations that are in your community.
Lydia Bailey:Yes. So we, have a qualification component to the pharmacy, that looks like we're looking at monthly household income. And we're trying to say if you are below 300% of that federal poverty line, you can qualify for our services. Even if you make more than that, but you can show that your expenses outweigh your income, you may still qualify for services. And so what we're trying to do there is just ensure anyone who needs us can have access to us.
Lydia Bailey:And so we have patient advocates who go through those financial documents, and make sure that patients really do have that need. And then the other piece of that is if you already have Medicaid that's active in Ohio, we will not serve you because you can get your prescriptions for free or very low cost already. And so we're always trying to be good stewards in making sure the people who really need us get to us and that we have room for those people who really need us. And if you don't really need us, you're gonna kinda self select out because we're not as fast as retail. We're not as convenient.
Lydia Bailey:We don't have a drive through. We don't have twenty four hour pharmacies, and you have to do, at least an hour long appointment every six months with a pharmacist to ensure that the medicine is the right medicine for you, and we're being good stewards of that resource. And so it's not you know, if you don't really need us, you know, you're gonna say, it'd be more convenient if I went elsewhere. And so what that that model does is it allows it to the people who really need us, they will do anything to get to us. And so time and that doesn't matter as much because they have no other way.
Lydia Bailey:And so just kind of the shape of the program allows us to filter out and get, to make sure that we're really helping those who need us the most.
Justin Cole:So Lydia, you and your team in the pharmacy have a unique approach to the care that you give to all of the patients that you serve. Tell me more about that model.
Lydia Bailey:Yeah. Yeah. When the pharmacy was founded, Mike Espol was the founding pharmacist, and he retired in 2021 but still volunteers here every week, which is just great. And now I got to be his boss. But, when he when he started the pharmacy, he started with just focusing on prescription dispensing.
Lydia Bailey:And so he understood that, you know, we need to get the medicine in the hands of the patients who need it, and that's step one. But then after a few years, he realized there's another level of care that's not happening. We can't assume that just because people have the medicine means they're gonna get healthier. And that's when we really shifted to being an outcomes based pharmacy. And so we said, you know, if we're gonna make our metrics of success, we don't want it to be just the number of prescriptions we fill.
Lydia Bailey:We want it to be how healthy our patients are. And so he and Rusty created this outcomes based model, which looks like a CMR every six months that's absolutely required before you can continue to fill medicine. And in that CMR process, that's where we will be able to see, okay, how's your disease state management looking? Are you knowledgeable and in control of your diabetes? Do you understand what each of your blood pressure medications are doing to your body?
Lydia Bailey:So we provide lots of education, lots of empowerment, and then we're tracking outcomes from that appointment. And so we're tracking every time a patient gets their A1C done in the pharmacy. We're tracking every time we reach out and successfully get a high intensity statin added on to someone who's post heart attack. And so we have these monetary values that are associated with each of those interventions that we've made. And so every time we make that intervention, we tabulate it, and now we have this estimated cost avoidance data to prove the clinical time we're spending is of value even though we're not billing for services.
Lydia Bailey:And so we're doing that as our innovative approach to prove our worth, and then we can show that to grants or private donors or other funders to be able to receive funding for our services. But, that's kind of the the outcomes based approach that we have been focused on. For now, it's been over twelve years of doing that, that outcomes based approach.
Justin Cole:If you're a pharmacist listening, how can you not get excited about that model, right? I wish that the current model for pharmacy allowed for more outcomes based approaches to care. But unfortunately, I think the financial model often drives the actual care model more than it should. But when you free yourself up from being a part of that financial model, you can do things that are truly impactful, that drive patient outcomes. And kudos to you and your team.
Justin Cole:You guys do a fantastic job with that. I want to ask, going back to something you said about charitable pharmacies, one of the things that makes them unique is that you can obtain medications from a variety of sources, which is great. Yep. You were actually a part of and of course, there are a lot of people involved with this helping to push through some legislation in Ohio. It was House Bill five fifty eight that was regarding medication donations.
Justin Cole:So could you tell us a bit more about that and how it has benefited your pharmacy and most importantly, patients?
Lydia Bailey:Yeah, this has been the most impactful thing I've done in my career is be part of this law change. Because prior to this law change, I was the one in the pharmacy who would check a patient out at the counter and tell them, I don't have your inhaler. And they would look at me and say, if you don't have my inhaler, where am I supposed to get it from? I can't afford it. There's nowhere else I can get it.
Lydia Bailey:And I would say, I don't have an answer for you, and they would walk away struggling to breathe. I would watch that happen. And then the next person would come up with that inhaler that that previous patient needed, and they say, hey. I'm not using this anymore. My doctor changed my dose.
Lydia Bailey:Or, My mom just passed away, and we have three months of this at home, and it hasn't been open. Can we give it to you? And I had to say no because legally, once it's been dispensed, no one can take it back. And it was crushing. And so I just had this fire building up because I would have probably a hundred donors a month calling.
Lydia Bailey:Hey. I have this really lifesaving medicine. Can you take it? And I would have to say, nope. You gotta throw it in the trash.
Lydia Bailey:And so it was painful enough to get me to be having it in the back of my mind all the time. And then God just opened this door, and there was a, email that went out from the State Board of Pharmacy that said, do you have any comments on the repository law? And that email said I said, you know, I do have some comments on this repository law. Wouldn't it be great if we could expand it? Because at this point, they had already made a change to allow for oral chemotherapy related medications to be donated back.
Lydia Bailey:And I said, well, why why does it only have to be that drug class? Why can't we make it more? And I reached out to someone at the board of pharmacy, Cameron McNamey, and he called me and said, this is a great idea. Write it up. And I said, do mean write it up?
Lydia Bailey:He said, well, we gotta do a memo. You know, we gotta get things moving. And, at the time, I said, I don't I don't know how to do a memo. He said, well, have you ever been to an advocacy day at legislation? And I said, well, I was supposed to go as a resident, and I skipped it.
Lydia Bailey:And so no. I and I just laughed at at how, you know, that story came back. But I had Rusty who helped me write this, and and then we got the other charitable pharmacies to get on board, wrote a memo. We got two sponsors to pick it up immediately. And so within a few months, we were at the courthouse doing a testimony to the health committee, for the representatives.
Lydia Bailey:It passed unanimously, and then it went to the senate, passed unanimously through the senate, and then it went to the governor's desk. He signed it into law. And so that law change happened in fourteen months, which is, I guess, unheard of, with how quick it happened. The whole every step of the way was just way easier than what everyone said it was gonna be. Everyone said, oh, you have to get the law changed.
Lydia Bailey:Good luck. You know? But we got it changed, and we got it expanded, and then we got a policy and procedure manual put into place. And so we started accepting end user donations or personal medication donations, and we started with just focusing on the the drug classes that we needed the most. So that was insulins, inhalers, and blood thinners.
Lydia Bailey:Since we started that, we have yet that was, almost two years ago now. We have not purchased any insulin in two years for any of our patients because we've had so much donations coming in. And then our inhaler purchasing has been significantly less. And so patients what's happening is our patients aren't going without their life saving medications and donors are getting closure with being able to say, I don't I've spent all this money on this product. Can someone use it?
Lydia Bailey:And we can say, actually, yeah. Someone can use it. This is gonna save someone's life. Thank you so much. And so we're closing that loop.
Lydia Bailey:And so we're on a big push now. Over the next few months, we'll have a statewide website to where throughout the state of Ohio, we can get more of these donations in because so many people don't know about this yet. And we were kind of intentional with that. We didn't wanna get overwhelmed because a pharmacist does have to visually inspect every product that comes in and sign off on the attestation that it was stored correctly. So there's time spent in that, and so we just wanted to make sure we we had it right first.
Lydia Bailey:But we're at the point now where we're ready to kind of open up the floodgates and see how much more impactful this law of change can be. So really exciting.
Justin Cole:I love that story. Grassroots advocacy can make a difference. Right? And it's also encouraging to see that sometimes common sense legislation moves pretty quickly, but it still takes a lot of work and partnership. We appreciate you here in the state of Ohio really being one of those champions for it.
Justin Cole:That's great. I want to allow you to tell us a little bit about just the volume of your because our listeners may be thinking, Okay, well, little charitable pharmacy, I'm sure it's pretty easy to manage that workload and be able to see patients and do CMR every six months. And it's probably not that big of an operation. But that's not the case. So tell us a bit more about St.
Justin Cole:Vincent de Paul and the volume that you see in terms of patients and prescriptions.
Lydia Bailey:Yeah, yep. Since we opened in 02/2006, and this year we will fill our one millionth prescription. So we are just moving right along. And so we were about to fill our 1,000,000 prescription. It ends up being about you know, we're gonna push 80,000 prescriptions this year.
Lydia Bailey:So that's kind of the prescription volume of what that looks like. We have three locations now. So we have our main downtown location. We have a Western Hills location and a Milford location. So still in the greater Cincinnati area, but the need is kind of pushing out to the suburbs more and more.
Lydia Bailey:And so we're trying to, expand our location access that way. And then the patient appointments, we usually are booking between eight and ten patient appointments a day just at our one main location, and then our satellites do about four or five patients a day for those CMR appointments. And so if you could think of, you know, we've gotta verify 350 prescriptions in a day and then do 10 CMRs in the same day, it it gets it gets pretty large. So, we have an incredible team. We've got about 18 full time employees, and that's a mixture of pharmacists, technicians, a resident.
Lydia Bailey:We've got social workers that are our advocacy team. We've got Hispanic outreach manager. About 30% of our patients are Spanish speaking only. So that's a whole another layer. But that's it's it's a lot bigger than what most people would think of.
Justin Cole:Yeah. Absolutely. Another part of your team, from what I understand, has been pharmacy students as well. And I know you've always been a huge advocate for mentorship and student development. So how does St.
Justin Cole:Vincent de Paul utilize students to deliver impactful and innovative services?
Lydia Bailey:Yes. Students have saved this program. We do between eighty and ninety student learners a year, and that's between APPY students and IPPY students. And they truly leverage what the pharmacist is able to do. There's no way a pharmacist would be able to see those 10 patients in a day while managing a schedule, while helping in the dispensary.
Lydia Bailey:And so what the students do is they remove the patient. They go in first. They collect the vitals, they do the full med history, gather all that data, and then present the data to the pharmacist who then creates the plan with the student and delivers the plan with the patient together. And so because of the student programming, we're able to see more patients. We're able to do more as a pharmacy, and the students are getting just the best experience.
Lydia Bailey:I know I'm biased, but I just think this is the best rotation that there is because of the patient care and the amount of hands on experience that you get. I mean, we have the best patients in the world. They're so appreciative. They're so excited to be taught about their disease states. So they're present listeners.
Lydia Bailey:They're active. They're engaged. They're saying things like, this is saving my life. Can you tell me more? You're so smart.
Lydia Bailey:Wow. You know? And so the students are just getting that positive affirmation back that they're making a difference, and they're seeing what it would look like to be a direct patient care pharmacist. And so, it's really a win win situation. And with the resident and then the IPPI students, we really have this layered learning model.
Lydia Bailey:So the APPI students learn from the resident, the IPPI students learn from the APPI students. And it's really neat to see the different schools of pharmacy interact with each other, the different ages of learners interact with each other. So it's it's a blessing to be able to still have all that going.
Justin Cole:Well, if you're a student and you're listening to this podcast, whether you're at Cedarville or another school, take note, you might want to reach out to Lydia and her team because these are really unique and transformative educational experiences that you can get. So, Lydia, we focus, of course, on this podcast on pharmacy innovation. So you've already highlighted a number of places in which your team is incredibly innovative. But I just want to kind of open it up and let you talk about some other ways in which your team has taken innovative approaches to the care that you're providing and move patient outcomes.
Lydia Bailey:Yeah, I think this outcomes based model, which I kind of already talked on, that's the only innovation that you really need when you think of direct patient care. And so what I mean by that is, you know, your metric of success has to move from prescription access to patients' health. And so previously, pharmacists were dispensers. We're not dispensers anymore. We're providers.
Lydia Bailey:But the public doesn't know that if we're still behind the counter just, you know, checking prescriptions on a computer. What they will recognize is, oh, you know, I had a I a student one time for an example that said, hey. You know, I just wanna be a community pharmacist. And I said, are saying just? Like, that's just you're a community pharmacist.
Lydia Bailey:Be excited. And they said, well, I just could never do this level of patient care because I have to hit these metrics. And I said, well, what if you just make it smaller? What if you just focused on one metric and you tracked that one metric and then you displayed that for all your patients in your community pharmacy to see that one metric? And so I followed up with a student because after a year, they decided they were gonna track access to rescue inhalers.
Lydia Bailey:And they said, every time I see a maintenance inhaler, I'm gonna just make sure a rescue inhaler is on board. And if it's not, I'll reach out to the provider, and I'll try to get one started. And if I get a rescue inhaler for the patients that didn't have one, I'm gonna track that as I prevented an emergency room visit. And I'm like, yeah. And that's an average of between 800 and $900 right now for each emergency room
Justin Cole:visit. Yep.
Lydia Bailey:So they just tabulated that up over a year, and then they just posted it in their pharmacy of, like, your pharmacist has prevented x amount of dollars in emergency room visit costs because of my clinical services. And that had patients asking questions. What do you mean? What clinical services? And then that pharmacist could explain, you know, what is happening there.
Lydia Bailey:And so, like, that's exactly what outcomes based innovative outcomes based care can be even before insurance recognizes it, even before you can bill for services. You can still select to be, I'm gonna be do the best thing I can for my patients. I'm gonna be a clinical pharmacist in a community setting, and I'm gonna use estimated cost avoidance to show that value. And then the patients and the insurance companies will get on board after everyone does this for years and years, and they'll recognize that. And then we will be able to be reimbursed.
Lydia Bailey:But even before that, there's so much opportunity to kind of make that small scale be innovative in that way and use estimated cost avoidance. And then the other area is navigation. I feel really strongly that every pharmacist should be an expert at navigating. And by navigating, I mean, like, the health care system and insurance and things like that. The amount of patients that come to our pharmacy thinking that they don't have prescription insurance.
Lydia Bailey:And so they say, hey, I went to the pharmacy counter. My prescriptions are gonna be over $500. I don't have that. And we say, okay. Well, we're just gonna check if you have Medicaid access.
Lydia Bailey:And they say, I I don't. And we're like, well, we we just make this a requirement. We check for Medicaid access. We log into the portal. We have access to the Ohio portal.
Lydia Bailey:We log in. All we have to do is put their birthday and their Social Security number, and it just pops up right there if they have Medicaid access. And if they do, the billing number is right there. So in that one moment, a patient who was completely not aware that they already had Medicaid for eight months, we're able to say, do have Medicaid. Here's your billing number.
Lydia Bailey:Take this to any other pharmacy and use this, and you can also have access to, you know, so many other services. That happens, I mean, on a daily basis. We have someone who just didn't know they had already been approved for benefits. And so if every pharmacist could be trained on doing that, how much less would we have patients walking away from the pharmacy counters empty handed? You know, it's it's resources that they already have been approved for that they didn't know they had access to.
Lydia Bailey:And then even if they don't have Medicaid, you as a pharmacist should be able to say, hey, it looks like you should qualify for Medicaid, or it looks like you should qualify for Medicare extra help. Or did you know there's a 340B pharmacy down the street that has a sliding scale or an FQHC pharmacy that has a sliding scale. We have to know what our resources are in our local communities. And we were the most successful health care provider. We have to be able to be that for patients and then navigate them to the access that they need.
Lydia Bailey:And I just think that we're really missing an opportunity for impact by not being well trained or well versed on this. And so I think, it's a really big area for innovating in the future.
Justin Cole:It certainly is. And the word that keeps ringing in my ears is advocacy. You've modeled that, which is why you've been recognized nationally for it. You have been a champion for advocacy at the legislative level, but also advocating for the individual patient. So when you see opportunities in our system, you act and try to change them.
Justin Cole:When you see opportunities for that individual, you act. And I think it's just that intentionality that leads to change and changes lives, quite frankly, that really we need to be emulating more. So, kudos to you. I love the stories that you've told to demonstrate those things. So, Lydia, I want to turn back to your story, really going back to the missions trip that you went on where you saw that faith and practice did not have to be divorced from one another.
Justin Cole:So I'd love to hear a little bit more about how your faith in Christ has influenced your approach to patient care and your work specifically at the charitable pharmacy.
Lydia Bailey:Yeah. Yeah, I've just seen and it should be kind of obvious, but it wasn't to me for a long time. But I've seen that I'm a better pharmacist if I've got my faith, you know, activated. And by that, I mean, like, it's on the forefront of my mind. And so a practical example of that is when I'm about to go in and have a hard conversation with a patient about how they really need to quit smoking to reduce their risk of heart attack or they really need to change their diet because their diabetes is gonna kill them.
Lydia Bailey:You know, one of those really kind of intense moments, I pray first. And those times when I remember to say, let me just pray first about this is when the words that come out of my mouth are exactly what that patient needed to hear. I didn't come up with that. Like, I wouldn't have known that that's what they need to hear, but God would know because he created them. So he knows exactly what they need to hear.
Lydia Bailey:And so why wouldn't I access that power every time I can when I'm connecting with a patient? And so when I do, and it's not all the time, but when I do, it's these powerful moments of prayer that what it does to the patient is it lets them see that they're not just a number to me, that they matter to me because I took the time to do something I really care about. Even if they're not Christian or anything or not of faith, they know that it's important to me. And so I am saying, value this so much, and that means I value you so much to do this with you even though it's a little bit uncomfortable. Oh, do you mind if I pray with you?
Lydia Bailey:And so those moments are really transformative, and patients come back and they say, hey. Remember when you prayed with me last year? That was just really like, thank you for doing that. And so, yeah, it's just I feel like, man, I am a way better pharmacist. I'm way, you know, more I'm way more accessible to patients.
Lydia Bailey:I'm way more present with patients when I just ask for the Holy Spirit to fill me before I interact with them. And then the same thing goes with employees as well. You know, I manage a lot of people. It can be really hard to do a performance evaluation that's not going very well and to encourage an employee to change, what they're doing, and it can be pretty uncomfortable. But when I ask God for the words to say and I can be direct knowing that I know that that employee knows I care for them.
Lydia Bailey:And so I can kinda tell them what's on my mind, and if it's not going well, we can pray together. It's just the better way to do things. And so it always surprises me when I go through seasons of life where I'm not using that power as much. You know, I get distracted and things are so busy. I'm like, what are you doing?
Lydia Bailey:You've already seen the power that you can have access to. Why aren't you just doing this every day? So it's all cyclical, but it's really good, and it's I've seen it firsthand, and it's really special.
Justin Cole:It absolutely is. How does your faith keep you grounded as well when you are performing all the different roles that you have in life? The Lord has given you quite a few places to invest your time, whether that's at home and at your job and other things. How does your faith help you to balance those things and keep you grounded?
Lydia Bailey:Yeah. Honestly, God's been so good to me, has given me so much favor through my husband. And as, I don't know, cheesy and corny as that sounds, he chose to be a stay at home parent so that I can be a full time working mom with five kids under the age of seven. I don't think there's any way we could make that work if we were both working. And it's not like he doesn't wanna work.
Lydia Bailey:He really wants to work, but he saw how passionate I was about my career and how great of an opportunity that was and said, you know, of course, I'd wanna sacrifice to support our family in this way. And it's been that's lonely. You know? Stay at home moms, that's a lonely thing. Stay at home dads, see way more lonely.
Lydia Bailey:How many stay at home dads do you know? You don't. And so his community is it's been way more difficult than most people would have had to do, but he's done it joyfully and so supportively. And because he's done that, I mean, that's what's allowed me to have the time to do the work, do the mom stuff, and then fill up my faith bucket. And and it even then, it's still days I'm running thin, but it would truly be impossible, if he didn't show that level of support.
Lydia Bailey:So, yeah, we are so blessed. Yeah.
Justin Cole:Oh, that's great. So I'd love to ask you a quick leadership question, because clearly you've been able to develop leadership skills, and they may have naturally always been there too, right? So is there any advice that you receive regarding leadership in the pharmacy space that has really resonated with you and helped to shape you as a leader in your team?
Lydia Bailey:Yeah. I would say Mike Espol, as a mentor, was so intentional about helping me develop as a leader. And, you know, I don't know if why he why he was so intentional with it, but he just kinda chose me and said, okay. You're I think it's because I was open to the open to the feedback. So I guess lesson number one is be receptive to feedback.
Lydia Bailey:You know? You you don't know what you don't know. Yep. And so his guidance has just been the most influential thing as far as me being a good leader. And why I mean that is he would tell me all the time, you know, be transparent.
Lydia Bailey:Be transparent. And that was with patients. That was with employees. And the more you could just keep that communication open and transparent, the better leader you'll be. And so I really stuck with that because I kinda felt for a long time growing up that I needed to be a people pleaser, and I kinda needed for faith to showcase.
Lydia Bailey:I needed to just make people think I was really nice. And I kinda had this misrepresentation of, like, being a Christian just means you're nice and people like you. And Mike was really the one to be like, if you really care for them, you'll tell them the hard truth. They're not gonna like you. That's not you're not there to be their friend.
Lydia Bailey:You're there to be their pharmacist. And so, you know, kinda buckle up, do the right thing, do say what needs to be said, be transparent, but make sure they know you're being transparent in a loving way. Like, that's just it. And so that was my that's been my biggest lesson, in leadership is being transparent. And, yeah, I'm really thankful for all the, examples and and mentorship I've gotten from Mike with that.
Justin Cole:He certainly does sound like a great mentor, someone that I even would want to reach out to and, and glean some of this wisdom. So I want to turn a little bit practical as we wind down this episode. So I'm assuming that there are people out there that are thinking this is pretty cool. I would love to be in an environment like this, or maybe even start one so that I could serve my community in a different way. So what advice would you give to pharmacists who are interested in either working in a charitable pharmacy setting or maybe even establishing their own charitable pharmacy?
Justin Cole:Where would they start?
Lydia Bailey:Yeah, there are not that many in the country. I think the last number I heard was about 150. No. I don't know how accurate that is. That's what's kind of been floating around there.
Lydia Bailey:And so to start one without seeing one, I mean, good luck. Like, I hope it works out. But I would say the best thing you can do is find a farm a charitable pharmacy, learn what they've learned from, learn what what pitfalls they've experienced, what successes they've experienced. So Rusty, our our current VP, he is so great at connecting with people who are interested in this space and saying, hey. Let me teach you what I've learned.
Lydia Bailey:You know, he basically rewrote everything in our pharmacy from the ground up. He is, like, the guy. So if you are truly interested, you know, reach out. I think you can attach my email, and I can forward you to Rusty, but he's really good at this. Or if you wanna just experience it, come volunteer.
Lydia Bailey:I think that's, like, how you get the practical experiences. You just gotta be in it. You gotta see how it looks, how it feels, And then you can kind of take that and go from there. But we are always looking for more volunteers. And so yeah, you could definitely get involved that way.
Justin Cole:Great advice. So looking ahead, what are the goals for the future of St. Vincent de Paul Charitable Pharmacy and for Lydia Bailey? What are some things that you're hoping to accomplish?
Lydia Bailey:Well, we always got a lot of big things going on. I think with the pharmacy, we're always trying to make sure that the people who need us can have access to us. So our big initiatives are just focusing on how are we improving access? Does that look like another location maybe further north? Does it look like a different model to deliver services?
Lydia Bailey:You know, is there a telehealth model that, would work? You know, is there a way to have a stronger statewide safety net network? So we're looking into that to kind of push into that next arena of of pharmacy care. And then for me, you know, I just like to take it one day at a time. I feel like this job is has been a godsend.
Lydia Bailey:If it is, I hope it's his will that I just get to stay here for my whole career. That would be fine by me. But I just wanna try to be the best leader I can be. Everything is about the patients for me. And so if I can help my teammates and my coworkers be better at their job, then the patients will have a better experience.
Lydia Bailey:And so I'm just trying to learn how how do I best motivate the team around me? How do I be a good listener? Someone once told me that their best ability was their availability, and I really liked that little phrase. And it was like, if I can do anything but just have my door open, then maybe I'm doing a good job. If people feel like they can ask me and, access my, help whenever they need it, then that'll be great.
Lydia Bailey:So nothing crazy, not shooting for the moon, unless the moon is patient care, you know, that's really what it's all about.
Justin Cole:Well, Lydia, that's a great way to end here. So thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. Listeners, I hope that you're inspired to think of different ways that you can serve your community. Maybe that means finding some innovative thing to do. It might be a small scale, right?
Justin Cole:When you've got that idea, get a little courage, talk to others about it, and see what you can do to impact your community. Lydia, always great to talk to you. Thank you again for joining us. Keep up all the great work down there at St. Vincent de Paul.
Lydia Bailey:Thank you.
Justin Cole:You have been listening to DISRxUPT, a podcast from the Cedarville University Center for Pharmacy Innovation. If you enjoyed listening today, please subscribe and share this podcast with others. Thanks for listening.