Beloved Local Pharmacist Passes the Baton to RMH
Published in the Daily News and Rushville Recorder
In 1975 Gene Kinman and Dan Billman hired Butler pharmacy student Kip Burkett to work part time at the Rushville Pharmacy. In 1980, Gene retired and Kip joined Dan as a full partner. Twenty-five years later Dan retired, and Kip became sole owner of the pharmacy. Now, after 48 years of service to his community, Kip himself is also ready to retire.
“My wife has been retired for 4 years,” Kip commented, “and she’s very excited to see me retire. In a lot of ways the pharmacy has been my life, and I’ve missed a lot of things of family life to being a pharmacist. We have three sons and eight granddaughters. I want to spend more time traveling with my wife, spending time with my dad and going to recitals and ball games. Retirement is really about family.”
While Kip is looking forward to his retirement, he admits having mixed feelings. “Retirement is going to be bittersweet of course. We see our patients every day and we care about them. It’s the people I’m going to miss. Running an independent pharmacy is all about customer service and relationships. Our customers are our friends and neighbors.”
Spending time with family has not been Kip’s only retirement concern. He says, “My retirement goal is to keep an independent pharmacy in Rush County. Independent pharmacies are more connected to the community and give better customer service.” He explained why this is so important, “People need help. Things are so complicated now. People have questions and in a retail setting pharmacists are more accessible than doctors. You don’t have to make an appointment to talk to your pharmacist. You can just pick up the phone and call. Unfortunately, now some pharmacies don’t even answer the phone.”
While Kip has been ready to retire for a while, he has not been, and is still not, ready to “drop the ball” for his friends and neighbors. This is one of the reasons that it has taken him so long to figure out his retirement. Fortunately, a decision he made eight years ago helped him find the answer he needed for both his family and his customers.
Eight years ago, Kip decided to join the Board of Directors of Rush Memorial Hospital. He says, “The hospital is part of the community and being on the board was one way of making sure the community has good health care. And gosh I learned a lot.”
During his eight years of service on the board he got a very personal look at the quality of care the hospital provides. He says, “We have a very excellent hospital for our community size. Our hospital is the envy of other hospitals. We have some services that a lot of small communities don’t have.”
Kip’s experience on the hospital board helped him build a relationship of trust with the hospital in general and Brad Smith, the CEO of RMH, in particular.
This relationship of trust eventually led to Kip’s ability to feel comfortable with retirement, knowing that RMH can pick up wherever he left off. He says, “I think it’s kind of a win-win-win situation. We will have the same pharmacy staff, the staff will have the same jobs and we will have the same customers. I get to retire knowing that the community still has a community-based retail pharmacy.”
Kip plans to retire at the end of 2024, but he doesn’t yet know the exact date. He does know, however, that there will not be any “pause” in customer service. Rushville Pharmacy will close on a Friday and RMH Hometown Pharmacy will open at 157 Foster Heights Rd (the former site of the RMH Covid Clinic and First Financial Bank Branch) on a Monday.
The hospital is extremely grateful for this opportunity. CEO Brad Smith said, “We know Kip is passing the baton and we intend to continue his legacy. He is trusting us to continue the system of care he has established for his customers. We feel very privileged to be able to do this.”
Brad added, “We’re also very thankful that Kip’s staff has agreed to stay on. Our customers will get to keep the same great service they are used to and nobody will lose a job over this.”
Kip is happy for his customers. He notes, “The hospital will be able to provide some things for our customers that we haven’t been able to provide.”
Carrie Tressler, Chief Nursing Officer of RMH, is particularly proud of the drive-through service. “People who need to pick up a prescription often don’t feel well to begin with,” she said, “not to mention elderly patients who don’t want to get out and walk in bad weather.”
Greg Pratt, Chief Pharmacist for RMH, completely agrees with Kip about the negative impact of increasing complexities on pharmacy customers. Like Kip, he wants to do everything he can to keep things clear and simple for patients. Greg said, “We will continue to offer “compliance packaging”, or blister packs of pre-packaged pills that are organized by date and time of day. We will still offer vaccines at the pharmacy. We will always be happy to answer any questions we can, and we will automatically cross check for medication interactions for every prescription that we fill.”
Greg is also very excited about the new services the hospital will be able to provide. His favorite is the “Meds to Beds” program. This program will allow RMH Hometown Pharmacy to deliver take-home prescriptions to hospital inpatients right when they’re being discharged. “People who are sick enough to be in the hospital don’t feel that great when it’s time to go home. Now they won’t have to stop and pick up meds before going home to rest.”
Greg is also happy that some patients will benefit from lower prices on some medications. He explains. “There are some circumstances in which a hospital-owned retail pharmacy can offer discounts that are not available through other retail pharmacies.”
Hometown Pharmacy will be open from 8 am to 6 pm Monday through Friday and from 9 am to 1 pm on Saturday. During open hours, the phones will be answered by pharmacy staff, not corporate phone trees. Patients who prefer to communicate via text will be able to do so. The pharmacy will also have an app for patients who want to place refill orders online.
The last question on many people’s minds, of course, may have nothing at all to do with the pharmacy. Unfortunately, the future of Rushville Pharmacy’s wonderful gift shop is not yet clear. Hopefully Kip will find someone to carry on this tradition as well.