MentorVIEW With Janet Brakebill
Director of Professional Services at NextRx

Janet Brakebill is director of professional services at NextRx, a high-tech company aiming to increase the use of automation and data to improve patient safety and reduce medication errors. Previously she was co-director of the outpatient center and director of pharmacy services at Overlake Hospital Medical Center in Bellevue, Washington.

PNOW: Please tell us about NextRx and what you do as director of professional services.

JB: It's just really exciting to be able to work for a company like NextRx that is really driven by a vision. The product that we've developed was designed by pharmacists working with nurses to come up with a new solution. As the director of professional services, I do anything and everything to really make this dream come alive. In professional services we have pharmacy and nursing and our system analysts working together. We're a multidisciplinary team that engages in problem solving. We consult, teach, process and reengineer. We are out there to unify the healthcare team so we can work together. Automation is a tool and one of our challenges is to make sure we work with people to teach them how to use that tool effectively. I also do some leadership and organizational development. My boss is a high-energy, mission-oriented person. He allows me to be me and we are learning from each other and growing together.

PNOW: How would you say you have helped unify the healthcare team?

JB: In healthcare, there are professional lines. We've got nursing. We've got pharmacy. We've got the physician. By offering a unified systems approach, the NextRX team is trying to get everyone working towards a common purpose-patient safety. Everyone who entered healthcare entered it to serve others and to really make a difference in the lives of our patients. One of the biggest challenges facing healthcare currently is the whole issue of medication errors. We must work together in finding safety assurance solutions, such as the NextRX system. With improved efficiencies in our medication use processes, we can free up our health care professionals to spend more time in patient care.

PNOW: Your life mission statement reads: To make a difference in the lives of others, teaching them to love, laugh and learn and to live life with a smile. How have you personally accomplished that in your life?

JB: I love to laugh. If we look at our whole purpose in living it really boils down to some fairly simple concepts. We're all here to give and to serve and we all want our lives to have meaning. One of my most favorite quotes is from Gandhi: "You must be the change you wish to see in the world." What I try to do in my life mission is to walk the talk - to always be present, to mentor others, to have a strong quest for learning. I'm a life long learner. I enjoy new ideas, teaching them to others, and the joy of seeing the smile on someone's face when they take some of those ideas and put them into practice. We're all here learning and growing together. I show my vulnerability because that's a powerful thing to help others to grow and develop. To really share my life and my experience with others is how I try to live out my life mission.

PNOW: What do you mean by "to always be present"?

JB: I make a commitment with my folks that if they need to talk I guarantee I will get back to them before I go home. It might be 11 at night but I will be there. I think that's really important when you are mentoring others. Also when I ask that question "How are you doing?" I really care. I listen, I seek to understand and I empathize.

PNOW: How do you help others achieve that same sense of "presence"?

JB: Part of it is by example, part of it is by teaching. I believe we are born with unlimited potential. I had an opportunity to do some training at the Pacific Institute where I met Lou Tice. One of his favorite quotes is: "All meaningful change begins on the inside first and then on the outside." Sometimes I will look at people as being like a bottle of 7-UP. They are full of bubbly potential yet they have this lid on top. I try to work with them to take off that lid so they can see all the wonder they have inside of them. Part of helping others is to put a mirror in front of their face and have them see through my eyes the potential they have. One of my favorite books is The Little Engine That Could. Often people's beliefs and attitudes are formed by previous life experiences that prevent them from being all they can be. If I can help them remove some of those barriers, work on some of those beliefs, use some of the concepts that I have learned from my readings or my schooling, it is amazing what dreams they can fulfill and what they can accomplish. We learn and grow together, creating magic. People can accomplish some of it just by changing their vocabulary, like "I can" or "I know I can."

PNOW: What characteristic do you see as the biggest prerequisite for success?

JB: I think it boils down to one basic premise: the importance of relationships, of building trusting relationships along common values and based upon trust. We are all in this world together. One of the most challenging projects that I have had to implement was putting in an operating room pharmacy satellite when the anesthesiologists from the beginning said they absolutely did not want it. I worked on developing an authentic relationship with those anesthesiologists. Our results were amazing. Together we achieved one of the most successful implementations in the history of project implementations at our hospital. Today, I can call any one of those anesthesiologists because we have established a great relationship. I will do anything for them and they will do anything for me. If you can relate to others in a very genuine and a very authentic way, you have one of the key characteristics for success. We really can accomplish magic together.

PNOW: What would you say are the key elements for building a relationship?

JB: The most fundamental skill in developing a relationship is the ability to empathically listen and to fully understand what the other person is saying. I also think it's important to treat everyone with respect and dignity.

PNOW: One of your strengths is obviously communicating in a non-threatening manner. Can you give any pointers on how to do that?

JB: The first is to always operate from a premise of everyone having value. I have learned in communicating and working with folks, especially when there are differences, is to not turn it into a win/lose game. I've eliminated the words, "I'm right and your wrong" from my vocabulary. I let the people I coach and mentor know up front that I don't use the words right and wrong. I replace those words with "I see it differently." That leads to further dialogue. We can come up with a solution that we never would have thought of if we got into the black and white. A sense of humor is also important. I make fun of myself a lot. That always helps folks in terms of receiving information in a non-threatening manner.

PNOW: What role do you think humor plays in a profession?

JB: I believe strongly that laughter is the best medicine. I think laughter and smiles are really a universal language that connects us. Norman Cousins says 'laughter is like internal jogging.' Laughter and humor get us into a place where we are at our best, to that inner child where the world was full of wonder. A lot of people say humor is unprofessional and I think in today's world that it is just the opposite. The world is a very stressful place. Organizations are struggling. They have to be creative and we are reaching out to humor to find something that can allow us to be creative. In many meetings, you can tell right away that people are in the 'no' mode. The chance of getting anything accomplished is slim to none. So if you can put a joke on the table or you get them laughing, it is amazing how you can get them to 'yes.' And then you accomplish things during that meeting. Healthcare is very stressful today. There is the labor shortage and everything that we have to deal with in terms of cost and it's very, very stressful. Using humor as a way to relieve some of that stress is very powerful.

PNOW: Who has had the greatest influence on shaping who you are?

JB: My father. He was a very simple person. He really enjoyed the simple joys of each day. He worked for a bread company his whole life. He got up at 3 a.m. each morning to meet the bread trucks. I think that's where I got my strong work ethic. When I was little, we used to go to the beach and we would dig clams together. I think that's where I got my connection with nature and the healing power of nature. My father also had this wonderful laugh and this twinkle in his eye. When he came into a room, you could just feel the room light up and I remember how good that felt. So I really try to be a light to others. If I can shine my light and then if all of us are shining our light, together it is a really brilliant glow.

PNOW: What else did you learn from him?

JB: The most powerful thing I learned from my father pertains to my career. When I was developing a community pharmacy from the ground up, the greatest thing in my career I thought was my first administrative title. Then a week before that pharmacy opened, I got the call that my father had died suddenly at work. The hardest thing I ever had to do was to find the courage to dig deep to come back. The only way I could do that was to put the spirit of all those things -- the laughter, the loving, the learning -- into that community pharmacy and I swear I was instilling that in the hearts and souls of the people. We beat every single productivity statistic they put before us. I learned that every problem has a gift for you in its hand.

PNOW: Thank you for sharing that powerful story. You are currently pursuing a doctorate degree in educational leadership. What is your motivation for that?

JB: We make life so complicated, especially in the business world. In life, we have some really simple concepts. It's about leadership and about love and about learning. I had been a director of pharmacy for a long time and I have done a lot of organizational change. I wanted to reach out and follow my heart in terms of a degree in educational leadership-teaching others to love, to learn, to laugh -to live life with a smile.

PNOW: How would it apply to your career?

JB: I think the profession of pharmacy is really lacking leadership development. When I graduated from the school of pharmacy, I had all this technical knowledge and all of this clinical knowledge. And I sat there thinking I was not ready to be a pharmacist. I heard that from all of my friends, too, because we never really worked on developing us as leaders. We are a profession where we have to influence others in terms of doing the right thing. We really don't have a lot of authority and control over the physicians and prescribing. So one of the things that drew me into the doctorate program was I could even learn more and really send a message with some credentials behind my name. It's my passion for people and my passion for learning to send a message to the world about the need to focus on mind, body, spirit that lead me into the doctorate program.

PNOW: How do you focus on mind, body and spirit?

JB: I think how you do it is by really looking at the whole integrated person, really tapping into the essence of what makes our common humanity.

PNOW: Do you have any final advice for the young pharmacist as he or she embarks out on a career?

JB: Steven Covey's work on the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is an important book. Early on, pharmacy is a very technical, very analytical, very clinical field. When you are just entering into the profession you need to spend some time thinking about what your core values are and what your mission is. Once you get that center you're going to be faced with some very challenging situations that you are going to have to deal with. You need to approach those from a sense of your core values and by always staying on the high road, always doing the right thing. Then you can continue to serve and to maintain the joy of why you entered pharmacy in the first place, but do it with integrity. There are so many opportunities in pharmacy. Listen to what your passion is and follow that passion. Always spend some time reflecting on what good you did today. Think about how you can continue to serve others, but also take time for self. It is about balance. I would like to end with a quote from Henry David Thoreau: " If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavors to live the life which he or she imagined, he will meet success unexpected in common hours."

Leisure Activities/Hobbies: I run for exercise and for reflection. I've ran 3 marathons in the past!
Favorite Book: The Alchemist and The Mutant Message have great messages for living. The Four Agreements is my most recent find for life wisdom. Who do you most admire and why? I most admire people who have taken great risk by standing up for what they believe in - most importantly for doing what is right for humanity. These people include Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Jesus, Abraham Lincoln.