An Interview with OnePoint Patient Care Leadership: ‘We Pride Ourselves on Being the Most Adaptable and Flexible Hospice Pharmacy Partner in Our Industry’

The term ‘hospice’, which shares the same linguistic root as “hospitality,” can be traced back to medieval times when it referred to a place of shelter and rest for weary or ill travelers on a long journey. The name was first applied to specialized care for dying patients by physician Dame Cicely Saunders, who began her work with the terminally ill in 1948 and eventually went on to create the first hospice – St. Christopher’s Hospice – in a London suburb.

Successful hospice care is rooted in the belief that an individual’s quality of life is as important as the length of life. Due to patient medical complexities, high acuity level of pain and challenging symptoms related to many end-of-life illnesses, providing hospice care is a highly demanding responsibility, requiring responsive local support. Pharmacy plays a critical role in helping to successfully manage a patient’s symptoms and quality of life.

OnePoint Patient Care believes in the mission of hospice: providing dignified and exemplary patient care is what informs the company’s culture and drives it every single day. OnePoint’s commitment to patient care continuously propels the industry-leading technology and innovation.

Founded in 1965 as Professional Pharmacy in Phoenix, Arizona, OnePoint began serving hospice patients in 1986 when Congress permanently authorized the Medicare hospice benefit. This launched the modern hospice care movement in the United States, focusing on providing specialized care for individuals facing a life-limiting illness.

While speaking with The Silicon Review, OnePoint Patient Care Leadership addressed how the company was built on the foundation of a patient first philosophy, its people and innovation. Below is an excerpt.

‘Our Commitment to Exceptional Patient Care Defines Us’

OnePoint Patient Care is the nation’s leading provider of community-based hospice pharmacy and pharmacy benefits management (PBM) services, offering hospices nationwide flexible and adaptable solutions for their hospice pharmacy needs. OnePoint fills prescriptions, creates custom compounds and formularies, provides home deliveries and manages pharmacy benefits for more than 32,000 patients per day. Through its Concierge PBM, Next Day Valet mail order and Direct Express local services, OnePoint serves more than 250 hospice programs in all 50 states.

“We hire, train and develop the nation’s most talented employees. We’ve created a culture where employees are inspired and motivated to place the needs of our patients first. We’ve developed innovative technologies that make our hospice partners more efficient and more productive, so we can all achieve our goal of providing superior patient care,” says Jeff Hohl, CEO.

‘We Value Our People’

OnePoint began with one dispensing pharmacy and 30 employees. Today, we own and operate 10 dispensing pharmacies nationwide and employ more than 250 people. The pharmacy was founded on a “Patient First Philosophy,” placing the needs of patients and the care teams who serve them above all else.

“What makes OnePoint Patient Care such a special company is our ability to hire, train and develop employees, at every level, to embrace and extol the virtues of our ‘Patient First Philosophy’ every minute of every day,” says Jeff Hohl.

“Every day I witness examples of greatness on our team. I see employees working 24 hours a day to support hospice nurses who also work round-the-clock to meet the needs of their patients. I see employees problem-solving inbound service inquiries when the request has nothing to do with their respective position  or role in the company. I see employees using their best judgment to make service exceptions for our hospice partners if it means a patient will receive a medication in a timely manner to help ease their painful symptoms.”

OnePoint Patient Care strongly believes that employees want to work for a company they’re passionate about, and for a company that’s passionate about them. Josh Cornelison, a Service Delivery Director, who has been with the company for nine years, reflects this passion. He began his career with the company as a driver making deliveries for the pharmacy and was eventually promoted to Dispatcher, Service Delivery Manager and then Director.

“OnePoint Patient Care is the perfect example of a company that rewards and promotes employees who embody the mission of ‘Patient First’,” says Cornelison.

“Employees are encouraged to use their intuition and personal judgment to do what’s best for our patients. Every employee is encouraged to place the needs of our patients first and to ensure medications are accurately dispensed and delivered expeditiously. What I love the most about our company is that employees are passionate about ensuring the patients’ needs are successfully met, and in return, the company recognizes and rewards this behavior by promoting employees to new roles as the pharmacy continues to grow. It’s just what we do. It’s our culture.”

It’s safe to say that what makes a company attractive is its people, culture and ability to innovate. These three attributes define OnePoint Patient Care.

‘We Make Innovation a Top Priority’

Innovative companies constantly challenge the status quo and never accept failure as an option. Nelson Mandela said it best: “It always seems impossible until it is done.” Innovation inspires, motivates, solves problems, makes us more productive and efficient, and saves us time and money.

OnePoint is passionate about adopting state-of-the-art technologies, developing and implementing industry-leading applications, and continuing to find ways to innovate. “Our goal is to enable nurses and other caregivers to focus on exceptional patient care rather than time-consuming administrative tasks ranging from patient documentation to facilitating medication and home care product procurement,” says Cornelison.

Internally, OnePoint’s pharmacy management system utilizes digital barcode technology that identifies the dispensed medications to ensure accurate filling throughout the dispensing process. The company uses robots to automate dispensing of our 200 most commonly ordered medications. This allows our pharmacy staff to be more accessible to and engage with, the nurses in support of quality patient care.

Externally, OnePoint has developed a comprehensive patient medication management application nurses use to admit and discharge patients, as well as manage a patient’s entire medication profile. This application, known as OneConnectPoint, also allows a physician to e-prescribe medications from “our simple portal with the click of a button.” OneConnectPoint is integrated with many of the hospice industry’s electronic medical records providers to ensure that nurses can enter patient administrative data into one system and have that information flow seamlessly to the hospice pharmacy, eliminating the need for duplicate data entry.

The company has also custom designed a web-enabled reporting platform providing nurses with 24-hour access to custom-designed reports such as Expiration of Schedule 2 Controlled Substances, Deprescribing Medications Report and Therapeutic Interchange Evaluation Report. These reports provide nurses with information critical to patient medication regimens, ensuring successful management of patient medication needs.

In addition, OnePoint’s innovations in its core operating platforms, mobile applications and reporting tools also allow us to extend into new business lines such as providing hub services for speciality drug manufacturers and PBM services for workers compensation insurers, third-party administrators and corporations.

“Our commitment to patient care continuously propels our industry-leading technology and innovation.” – Jim Otterbeck