Follow What You're Good At

Introduction


Prior to launching Union Pharmacy (https://unionrxs.com/) , Dr. Xiaoyan Qin, PharmD, spent 15 years as a pharmacist and pharmacy manager for a national chain. Driven by a passion for patient care, but frustrated with corporate metrics that limited care, she often wondered to her husband, Dr. Jeff Gruneich (https://www.linkedin.com/in/gruneich?...) , PhD, What if I could do this differently…?


Complementing Xiaoyan’s detailed understanding of pharmacy finance and operations, Jeff’s background as a bioengineer, biotech entrepreneur and technology and product management at IBM, Roche, and MathWorks, rounded out a unique toolkit for pharmacy innovation. The question became more focused: What if the patient-pharmacist relationship formed the core of the business and everything else supported that mission?


What followed was a leap into independent pharmacy ownership that would test their partnership, push them to innovate during a pandemic, and ultimately lead them to create SimpLED (https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/...) - a pharmacy will call solution that’s now available to help pharmacies across the country.


In this episode, Dr. Qin and Dr. Gruneich take us through the journey from opening the first Union Pharmacy location in July 2019—just six months before COVID-19 changed everything—to now operating four successful locations in the Boston area. They share how necessity became the mother of invention when they couldn’t find an affordable will-call system that met their needs, leading them to develop SimpLED (https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/...) , an automation tool that’s transformed their operations and enhanced their customer’s pharmacy experience.


This is a story about listening to your community, playing to your strengths as partners, and refusing to accept “that’s just how it’s done” as an answer. Whether you’re considering pharmacy ownership, struggling with operational bottlenecks, or simply looking for inspiration on how to stand out in today’s competitive landscape, Dr. Qin and Dr. Gruneich’s practical wisdom and innovative spirit offer valuable lessons for independent pharmacy owners everywhere.


Interview


Sonja Pagniano: Welcome to the Script Your Future podcast, as we gear up for the upcoming NCPA Convention (https://ncpa.org/annual-convention) we are excited to bring you Xiaoyan Qin, a pharmacy owner from Massachusetts (https://belmontvoice.org/belmont-to-w...) with over two decades of pharmacy and pharmacy manager experience, and Jeff Gruneich, her husband and tech afficionado. Jeff brings a background in technology, marketing, product management, and sales, as their pharmacy locations grew, so did his involvement in supporting Xiaoyan’s pharmacies. Xiaoyan and Jeff - welcome to the podcast! How are you guys?


Xiaoyan: Doing good.


Jeff: Glad to be here. Thank you.


Sonja: So tell us a little bit about where you guys are located so that people have kind of an idea of the spot in Massachusetts that you’re in.Xiaoyan: Yes, my name is Xiaoyan, I’m the owner of Union Pharmacy (https://unionrxs.com/) . I’ve been working as a pharmacist for 20 years. Currently, we have four Union Pharmacies located at the Newton Center, Newtonville, Meaden, and Belmont. So, pretty much like outside of Boston area.


Sonja: Great. Xiaoyan, take us back to 2019, when you opened your first pharmacy, maybe even a bit before, because I know you were working in chains and that experience can be much different. What shaped your vision for what the pharmacy would become from your time there?Xioayan: As a pharmacist, I always want to build a very trustable relationship between pharmacists and the patient. So when I worked at big chain, I feel this mission is kind of hard to achieve. And then says [to Jeff], you know, I feel I can’t accomplish the mission I want to accomplish when I work at the big chain. What do you think? You know, do you think that we can afford to open a pharmacy? Jeff: Yeah, I mean I think so. To give a little bit of background about myself, Xiaoyan would come home, we’d talk about pharmacy since she graduated, her PharmD degree. And during that time, I was basically working for technology companies in a global sales role for IBM, as an entrepreneur in stem c...