Manager- Pharmacy Operations

Job Purpose
Lead and standardize pharmacy operations across the hospital network, ensuring regulatory compliance, patient safety, medication availability, cost efficiency, inventory optimization, and consistent pharmacy practices across all units.

Key Responsibilities

1. Pharmacy Operations & Governance

• Provide strategic and operational leadership for pharmacy services across hospitals.
• Develop and implement standardized pharmacy policies, SOPs, workflows, and operational standards.
• Monitor pharmacy performance across all units and drive corrective actions.
• Establish governance mechanisms, audits, review meetings, and escalation processes.

2. Inventory & Supply Chain Management

• Oversee centralized pharmacy procurement, inventory planning, stock replenishment, and distribution.
• Optimize inventory levels, working capital, expiry management, slow/non-moving stock, and stock-outs.
• Develop systems for inter-hospital stock transfers and centralized inventory visibility.
• Collaborate with procurement and supply-chain teams for vendor management and negotiations.

3. Cost & Revenue Management

• Drive pharmacy revenue growth while maintaining patient-centric practices.
• Monitor gross margins, purchase costs, discounts, wastage, expiry losses, and operational expenses.
• Identify opportunities for cost optimization without compromising quality or patient safety.
• Prepare and monitor pharmacy budgets and financial KPIs.

4. Regulatory & Compliance

• Ensure compliance with applicable pharmacy, drug-control, narcotics, biomedical waste, and hospital regulations.
• Ensure readiness for NABH/NABL/JCI or other applicable accreditation requirements.
• Conduct periodic compliance audits and close identified gaps.
• Ensure proper documentation, controlled-drug management, storage, dispensing, and record maintenance.

5. Medication Safety & Clinical Coordination

• Strengthen medication safety practices across the organization.
• Work closely with medical, nursing, quality, infection-control, and clinical teams.
• Support formulary management and rational use of medicines.
• Monitor medication errors, high-alert medications, LASA drugs, antimicrobial stewardship initiatives, and adverse drug-event reporting.

6. Technology & Process Improvement

• Drive effective utilization of pharmacy information systems/HIS/ERP.
• Promote automation, barcode-based dispensing, electronic inventory management, and data-driven pharmacy operations.
• Identify process gaps and implement Lean/continuous-improvement initiatives.

7. People Management

• Lead, mentor, and develop pharmacy managers and teams across hospitals.
• Define manpower requirements, competency standards, KRAs, and performance metrics.
• Develop training programs and succession plans for pharmacy leadership.
• Promote a culture of accountability, patient safety, and service excellence.

8. Analytics & Performance Management

• Develop pharmacy dashboards and review KPIs across hospitals.

• Track metrics such as:

• Pharmacy revenue and growth

• Gross margin

• Inventory days

• Stock-out rate

• Expiry/write-off %

• Non-moving inventory

• Purchase price variance

• Prescription/dispensing turnaround time

• Medication errors

• Patient satisfaction

• Compliance/audit scores

• Present periodic performance reports and strategic recommendations to senior management.

9. Stakeholder Management

• Coordinate with hospital CEOs/COOs, medical leadership, finance, procurement, supply chain, quality, IT, and nursing teams.
• Manage relationships with pharmaceutical companies, distributors, and other strategic partners.
• Participate in organizational committees related to pharmacy, medication safety, formulary, procurement, and quality.

Key Competencies

• Multi-unit hospital pharmacy operations
• Pharmacy regulatory compliance
• Inventory and supply-chain management
• P&L and cost management
• Medication safety
• Hospital accreditation standards
• Vendor and stakeholder management
• Data analytics and MIS
• Team leadership
• Process improvement and SOP implementation
• Strong communication and negotiation skills

Ideal Candidate Profile

The ideal candidate should have strong experience managing pharmacy operations across multiple hospitals or a large healthcare network, with demonstrated expertise in inventory optimization, regulatory compliance, medication safety, financial management, team leadership, and operational standardization. Experience working from a corporate/group healthcare office and managing pharmacy performance across multiple locations would be highly desirable.