From Dunnville to Niagara: Innovation, personalized care key to Hauser's Pharmacy longevity

Hamilton Spectator

14 hours ago

While it's not quite accurate to say Phil Hauser comes from a long line of pharmacists — unless you call second generation a long line — the profession is in his blood.
'I took my first steps in the back room of the pharmacy,' he said.
That would be Hauser's Pharmacy. The Dunnville business was opened by his father Jim, who with his mother Bonnie took over a long-running pharmacy in 1980.
Over the next 45 years, it has remained a fixture in that town. It gradually spread across southern Ontario — its first offshoot was in St. Catharines in 2014 when Hauser's opened in the new hospital. Last year, Hauser's opened its second location in the region, in the former CIBC building on Queen Street in Niagara Falls, a site it shares with a physician clinic.
All the while, the pharmacy has maintained its independence and commitment to personalized care.
'We recognize every patient wants something different from their health-care provider,' said Hauser, who took over the family business in 2007 following his graduation from pharmacy school.
'Some people simply want their prescription filled fast and effectively, and we do that. Some people want more. Some people have a lot of questions about their conditions, some people want to question a lot of the information that they find online, and some people need that personal connection before discussing things that are otherwise very personal.'
Hauser's Pharmacy current owner Phil Hauser in front of the prescription counter at the Dunnville store in 2021. At the time, Hauser's was preparing to administer COVID-19 vaccines.
About the same time he took over the business, Hauser was elected to Ontario Pharmacists Association, for which he served six years.
Among other things during that time, he advocated for an increased role of pharmacists in patient health care. Hauser's was one of 32 pharmacies involved in a pilot program in Ontario offering flu shots — something that has since been rolled out across the province.
But the advocacy and innovation has been a constant thread in the family business, Hauser said.
In the early 1980s, his mom called on the Health Ministry to have tobacco products removed from pharmacy shelves.
'Even though it was a significant source of income for pharmacies, it flew in the face of being a health-care provider, and providing something that we knew was poisonous or a detriment to people's health in the same breath,' Hauser said.
Bonnie and Jim Hauser at a computer terminal in their Dunnville pharmacy. In the early 1980s, Hauser's Pharmacy was one of the first in Ontario to incorporate computerized patient prescription records.
Also in the 1980s, Hauser's was also one of the first pharmacies to incorporate computer records to track patient prescriptions .
'It's something we take for granted today, but back then you were flipping through people's prescriptions and just making sure the refills were still valid,' he said. 'There wasn't the same level of continuous care that we're used to.'
Hauser's launching a mobility and home health care division in 2014, Supper Services, its in-home private care division in 2021 and a remote dispensary operation for an underserved community in the Muskoka region in 2022.
Hauser said this history of innovation and ability to provide a continuum of care for patients is what made the business an attractive choice for pharmacy partner with the now-named Marotta Family Hospital in St. Catharines.
'They recognized that our mission, our philosophy of bringing better patient care, was a key tenant that the NHS wanted to do, which was to guide the continuity of care for patients that were leaving outpatient clinics or were leaving the hospital altogether, and then making sure they had the proper transition into community care,' he said.
This year, the pharmacy is marking its 45th anniversary at all nine of its stores with monthly giveaways, sales o throughout the year, children's colouring contests and rolling discounts.
See its website,
www.hausershealthcare.com
, to sign up to receive information or follow Hauser's on its social media channels.
Hauser said their ability to remain independent lies in them striving to provide continual value for their patients.
'We want to provide the best level of health care,' he said. 'And I think that's not always something that's evident until you experience it. And when you experience it … my hope is when you come into a Hauser's Pharmacy and you notice a difference in the quality of care that that means something to you.'