-
Social Justice Programs – An Opportunity for a Patient Engagement and Health Literacy Expansion
Now that Location Rules have been made more certain through enabling legislation, it provides a level of certainty in respect of investing in services which would provide a community benefit, that in turn, could eventually be funded through government along the already familiar experience of a public/private partnership. i2P has previously expressed the opinion that…
-
Pharmacy Professional Services – the Willingness to Pay
A recent study published by ScienceDirect discusses values of pharmacy professional services and the willingness to pay by consumers. The study was based on literature reports that specifically noted a willingness to pay a community pharmacist and had value established using the method described as Contingent Valuation Method (CVM). Some analysts have used the study…
-
An Opportunity Opens Up – Will Pharmacy Leaders Grab It?
As pharmacists and coalface health practitioners we accumulate a lot of knowledge that other health practitioners do not have access to. This is because we are the only health profession that does not require a payment from a patient to access our physical pharmacy space. In addition, pharmacy culture has always allowed pro bono professional…
-
Pro Bono Pharmacy Services Create a Social Dividend
Pharmacists have always embraced a culture where service provision for health problems have been provided free of charge to local communities, while the physical product that resulted as a solution to those health problems attracted a monetary value. In contrast, GP’s charged for their services (consultations) and basically avoided selling products. Given that pharmacists and…
-
Scotland’s Pharmacist Practitioner Champions
Perhaps it is because of my Scottish heritage, but I am continually dawn to the Scottish business model for community pharmacy, funded and developed in a genuine partnership between community pharmacists and government. One of its lesser publicised components is the funding of “Practitioner Champions”. It’s not a lot of money (£300,000 funding for this year),…
-
Pharma Logistics Changes Will Add Costs to Community Pharmacy – Wholesalers Will Need to Reinvent Themselves
Amgen is now the third pharma to alter its supply chain to bypass pharmacy wholesalers and deal directly with community pharmacies. This will create a “double whammy” effect in relation to community pharmacies’ overheads in that more staff time will be required to prepare orders, and wholesalers, deprived of turnover and a scale of economy,…
-
Prime Air – The Amazon Solution for Internet-ordered products is not quite ready for take-off
Amazon has invested time and money to speed up its shipping services. It has algorithms that anticipate a client order, ultra-efficient robots that pick items from warehouses, and even a service titled Prime Now that delivers allowable items to your doorstep, just hours after you order them. Amazon’s primary focus appears to be to market and control totally an…
-
Analysis of new and Existing Global Retail Market Entrants and Their Effect on all retailers and Australian Pharmacy, and the Privatisation of Health
Indications are that at least two global retailers are in the process of setting up shop in Australia – Amazon, and the German-based Kaufland group (both having selected distribution sites in Melbourne), and a third, Costco, recently arrived in Australia, has major expansion plans. Aldi, established in Australia since the year 2000, has significantly altered…
-
Pharmacy Disruptors – Amazon, Artificial Intelligence & Holographic Health Practitioners
Disruption, as we all know, is an inevitability that is to be feared. If that fear can be used to motivate a chain reaction of positivity, then we have everything to gain and nothing to lose. Fear is already building around the knowledge that Amazon will be entering the pharmacy market in Australia and that…
-
Pharmacy Care- a Search for Competition?
It’s some time since I caught up with Seth Godin (the international marketing guru with a seemingly inexhaustible supply of words of wisdom and inspiration). One of his recent quotes caught my eye: “In search of competition- The busiest Indian restaurants in New York City are all within a block or two of each other.…