SEATTLE — Earlier this year during the height of the omicron surge, pharmacies were hit hard as they managed unprecedented staffing shortages, vaccines programs and long wait times for prescription drugs.
Now with Washington's indoor mask mandate ending this Saturday amid declining COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, Bartell Drugs is also in a recovery stage.
The pharmacy chain said it is now operating at 80-90% pre-omicron staffing levels, prescription wait times and vaccine appointment availability.
Helen Jung is the Director of Pharmacy Operations at Bartell Drugs and says she's proud of the staff, which voiced concerns early on and offered solutions.
"We asked, 'what can we do to support our teams,' and they told us they need more time to catch up on the day and prepare for the next day," said Jung.
In January, the company made the decision to close all locations an hour early every day to allow staff to fill prescriptions after a full day of vaccine appointments.
Jung said Bartell also spent the last few months focusing on staffing incentives like career opportunities for pharmacy technicians and a student loan plan for 2022 pharmacy students.
While these strategies seemed to have worked as pharmacy operations level off, it's unclear if it's solely because of those incentives or because the pandemic itself is leveling off.
The concern for customers now is how Bartell Drugs and other pharmacies apply lessons learned from omicron to this next phase with a possible second booster this fall and vaccines for kids ages 5 and under so people don't face similar issues again.
It's something Jung feels confident in.
"We have so many different ideas that we tried and were successful, and we are most likely going to repeat that when that times come," said Jung.
She says moving forward, their goal is to ensure COVID-19 tests remain in stock after nationwide shortages resulted in empty shelves in almost all pharmacies in December and January.
As for treatment, Bartell does currently offer an oral antiviral treatment at two locations, and Jung says they are hoping to add more as supply increases.
"Guidelines change all the time, and so we have to be nimble," Jung added.
Despite mask mandates lifting for most public places on March 12, Bartell is receiving nine million masks from the federal government that will remain free in their 68 stores until they run out.
After that, they will be available for purchase.