Editorial
Welcome to the March edition of i2P – Information to Pharmacists.
You may have noiticed if you receive i2P by email, that we have simplified our mail out presentation.
This was because the code in our earlier version appeared to be too unstable to maintain, hence the simpler presentation.
Columns
Rollo Manning: Pharma-Goss
Loretta Marron BSc: Health Watch
Barry Urquhart: Marketing Focus
Harvey Mackay: Strategic Thinking
Mark Neuenschwander: I`ve been thinking about...Recent Comments
Past Editions
Volume 1 Number 1
Volume 1 Number 2
Volume 1 Number 3
Volume 1 Number 4
Volume 1 Number 5
Volume 1 Number 6
Volume 1 Number 7
Volume 2 Number 1
Volume 2 Number 2
Pharma News
Staff Writer: SIGMA Pharmaceuticals suspends share trading before release of revised earnings outlookHospital News
Health Politics
Pat Gallagher: Health Informatics - The State of the Nation
Peter Sayers: The Three-Ring Circus
Dr David More: e-Health IdentifiersEPublications
New Zealand to Fund Pharmacy Clinical Services
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PDF version | John Dunlop |
John has been involved in community pharmacy for most of his professional life. | |
The NZ government has this month stated that it is very keen to fund clinical pharmacy services (undefined). The fact that they recognise we are capable of providing clinical services is a plus on its own, but to consider funding…well!!
We are obviously moving down an interesting political path. The general practitioner organisations are being leaned on to present themselves as inclusive health provider organisations which means that they need to some how demonstrate effective working relationships with other health care providers. This environment could work very well for those pharmacists wishing to move into clinical roles.
In this country government funding for clinical pharmacy services can be provided directly to the pharmacist either through a general practitioner organisation or a Primary Health Care organisation. There are many buckets of money that are successfully used to fund pharmacists already, and it looks like there may be some more added to the list.
The general practitioner organisations are being pressured to demonstrate that they are supportive of collaborative relationships with other health care providers. They seem for the first time, to be interested in including clinical pharmacists among others in their deliberations which will put some pressure on pharmacy to respond.
If the number of job opportunities suddenly increase we will have a major task trying to find the resource to fill the vacancies.
In addition there has been little planning undertaken to cope with the support mechanisms necessary for those pharmacists wishing to take these opportunities. Support that might ensure that they are being rewarded adequately on the one hand, and being utilised appropriately on the other.
These are interesting times indeed. The new government has a very different approach to health care delivery and is putting pressures on all health care providers to work in different ways. How pharmacy will respond to this environment is anyone’s guess.
Community pharmacy is about to be confronted with negotiations for a new dispensing contract which I suspect will be very different to the one currently in existence. If I read the scene correctly, the push to limit the dispensing remuneration will increase, and now be balanced by a new carrot - funding for clinical service provision.
This environment will be a difficult one for dispensing pharmacies to cope with. Already worn down with compliance documentation and legislative bureaucratic reporting requirements that seem to have taken precedence over serving the needs of the public, they will now have to try and determine how to take advantage of the dollars on offer.
To do so they may need to change the community pharmacy model, and that won’t happen over night.
Return to home
Dr Andrew Byrne & Associates: Fatal torsade tachycardia due to methadone either rare or non-existent finds Norwegian study
Neil Retallick: A time of pivotal change will require new ways of thinking about community pharmacy
Neil Johnston: Dispensing errors and criminality
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