Welcome to this weeks’ edition of i2P (Information to Pharmacists) E-Magazine, dated Monday 24 August 2015.
Fears of recession in Australia are rising as our economic indicators begin to show signs of a first recession in 24 years.
Our budget seems to have blown out already, mining is still on the decrease and unemployment is steadily rising.
People are generally unhappy with the behaviour of their politicians – from their petty performances in Parliament to their overblown expense accounts.
And, as usual, their inability to tell a truthful story.
The captain’s call is not trusted.
So this indicates that you need to take an audit of your business finances.
Are your debtors and creditors in line – if not, take steps to bring both into terms, or make solid arrangements to come into line.
Are all expenses within a reasonable budgetary limit?
Simultaneously, are all loans under control?
And most importantly ensure your stock turns are at maximum level.
There are signs of tightening of credit.
The time to secure a line of credit is when you don’t really need it.
At the point you need extra liquidity it occurs at the same time that everyone else does.
This week we also highlight an incident that occurred in the UK where a Sue Dunlevy clone wrote an article on pharmacy and queried the ability of pharmacists to maintain privacy for electronic patient data transmitted from GP surgeries.
For an item of news that had not yet happened, it made the front page ironically, of their Daily Telegraph tabloid newspaper.
They must have been short of news or someone with a new political agenda wanted a scapegoat.
Pharmacy in Australia has already taken a number of untruthful and unwarranted media “hits” and because we don’t always have the right of reply (or retraction) it does damage pharmacy’s image overall.
Fortunately, pharmacy customers and patients still hold pharmacists in high esteem and want to utilise their services more often.
The reason for this is from decades of strong service delivered ethically and honestly.
However, it is probably prudent to perform a “due diligence” on your own values and “core principles”.
The stronger this area of your practice is the stronger becomes your overall image which reinvigorates already strong ties with the community.
But they must be communicated to the community in as many diverse ways as possible.
Conditions do change rapidly and the general public are not always fully informed, so it is time to spend a little bit of time an effort to prepare a vision statement, a core principles statement and the back story of your culture development.
This is not a waste of time, and provided it is prepared accurately and honestly, offers your best defence against the might and impact of mainstream media.
They are rapidly losing credibility and readership to specialist Internet news media, but they can still inflict major damage as they promote large corporate interests or party political interests.
Read: Strengthening the “Core” of Pharmacy
This is not just a PR exercise but lies at the very heart of your management decisions and your marketing exercises.
And following on from the “Core” exercise begin the more difficult phase of translating your values and culture into “your brand”.
This means that you must develop your own marketing communications with all external influences (such as market groups) subservient and integrated within your brand.
To allow others to dilute your brand means that you lose control, find yourself paying higher marketing costs and eventually making you vulnerable if a stronger brand is allowed to dominate.
There are many predators out there taking bites out of the pharmacy market place and in these days of reducing sales and market share it could be said that it is already happening.
Any savings you make by internal control of marketing means that you also benefit through being able to afford the development of local skilled sales and marketing staff.
That reduces the lead-time in chasing down market segments which may be the only advantage you have, short and long term.
Read:
Create Your Own Brand Challenge – or Spring Clean the one you already have
We are also stepping up the focus on the vaccine debate.
i2P is now convinced that a major segment of vaccine evidence is corrupt or non-existent and that coercive policies by government for mandatory vaccination is simply poor policy and leaves government open to challenge.
It creates a major issue for vaccine damaged patients- mostly vulnerable small children.
We describe where this has happened in Italy as a sample of non-biased reporting of an actual vaccine event.
And this is not the only event of this type that has occurred in recent times.
I have already advised my family members of my views of this flawed policy, and indeed have a grandson on the way with delivery due in two months’ time.
This will inevitably become an election issue because it is undemocratic and unpopular.
Read: Recent Italian Court Decisions on Vaccines and Autism
The above article is also reinforced with a video prepared by an investigative journalist in the US.
Read: Vaccines – Conflict of Interest
What will you include as content when you give informed consent to any patient you vaccinate?
Next, we have some interesting Australian research completed by Swinburne University of Technology where they have developed wound dressings with the ability to draw bacteria out from a wound, and have them attach to nanofibres.
Not only does the wound heal faster, but there is also the potential for using nil or minimum doses of antibiotics.
If you are considering setting up a treatment room in your pharmacy, this product might prove to be a valuable addition.
Read: Smart dressings speed healing of chronic wounds
Monash University made the news recently through innovative technology that builds on existing solar fuel (hydrogen) generation at a much faster rate and creates an efficiency level that is commercially feasible to market.
The Australian economy will manifestly benefit from this type of technology along with other forms, as it transitions to a low carbon economy.
The sooner Australia loses its dependence on fossil fuels the better.
Read: Monash research sets new record for generation of fuels from sunlight
Plus we have media releases from PSA PSA Media Releases – PSA calls for more research into medicinal cannabis, from PGA Forefront – Primary role for community pharmacy, and from ASMI, ASMI Media Release – ASMI Conference 2015.
Enjoy your read for this week and please create feedback in the comments panel at the foot of the page.
Good feedback stimulates the writers to tailor their articles to your area of interest.
Neil Johnston, Editor
Monday 24 August 2015