Dearborn Heights Pharmacy: Shortages in Pharmacists in 2020 and Beyond


For the past few years, it has been obvious, especially for pharmacies like Dearborn Heights Pharmacy that the job market for pharmacists has become more competitive and the number of pharmacy schools has raised. Significant shifts have been noticed in the supply and demand and employment projections have done a major turnabout, from projected shortages to an impending surplus.

What is the PDI or the Pharmacy Demand Indicator? Dearborn Heights Pharmacy would like to define its purpose simply as an indicator of the perceived demand for pharmacists based on employers’ opinions. It follows a rating scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the highest and 1 the lowest. The scale is as follows: 5 = High demand: difficult to fill open positions; 4 = Moderate demand: some difficulty filling open positions; 3 = Demand in balance with supply; 2 = Demand is less than the pharmacist supply available; 1 = Demand is much less than the pharmacist supply available.

The Pharmacy Demand Indicator or PDI, reports a national rating of 3, which indicates equilibrium between the supply and demand for pharmacists. The reports showed some mild spikes in demand oversupply in the north-central Midwest, in the central South, and in the Mountain West regions. Among all of these areas, ratings have risen above 3. However, ratings have dipped below 3 in many other regions.

This is where the problem lies, figures in the PDI show also show that there are regions where demand exceeds supply, and trends in these areas are likely to continue. Such areas are the job of the pharmacy manager and specialized pharmacy. A study done in 2013 showed that the need for pharmacy managers was four times greater than the need for pharmacists. Furthermore, almost three-fourths of all managers were expected to retire within ten years, which exacerbates the problem. Specialized pharmacists, on the other hand, are pharmacists who have advanced qualifications in areas such as MTM, anticoagulation, oncology, among others.  Up to this date, Dearborn Heights Pharmacy is a witness to this continuous trend. The PDI recently showed ratings between 3 and 4, indicating that the demand for these pharmacists are somewhat outstripping the supply.

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