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Your Dispensary – Core Business Could Evaporate
This year will be “crunch time” for most community pharmacies who have not yet decided on adopting disruptive technologies as a means of improving the “bottom line” of their pharmacy. I am thinking specifically the decision to purchase a robotic dispensing machine. It is almost a “no-brainer”. Robotic dispensing equipment has been available to pharmacy…
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Medical Cannabis – a Product That Clinical Pharmacists Could Match to Chronic Illness
While there has been movement in the right direction in getting medical cannabis on to the market in Australia there are still some glaring anomalies in its introduction and you would have to ask “Why?” Where I live in NSW I am on the fringe of some of the best cannabis growing soils and climate…
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The Corporate Capture of Democracy (and Community Pharmacy)
GetUp! sent me an email that included the following words: “Major corporations in Australia just threatened a $20 million campaign blitz, to hold onto their power and avoid scrutiny of their scandalous conduct. But from the rise of Bernie Sanders, to the fall of Iceland’s tax dodging Prime Minister, there’s a new popular global uprising…
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Fast Food Leading the way – Annihilate Dispensing or Enhance it?
The fast food industry is rapidly moving to replace employees with robots to eliminate payroll, health benefits and human unreliability. It will prove to be a template for pharmacy evolution and it’s under way right now. Also, it’s very likely that, within your professional lifetime, you’re going to see a huge revolution in robotics. It…
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Digital Nomads – Providing Clinical Services That Appeal
There’s a growing opportunity that is emerging among professionals who are adapting to a nomadic lifestyle. You don’t have to be “grey” to qualify for the lifestyle – and it can accommodate any age. It does however, require a full confidence in your knowledge base and have some tech-savvy skills in addition. Welcome to the…
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The Lessons From History – From Someone Who Has Lived It
Two weeks ago we published an article called Make the Right Turn at the Next Crossroads . It was based on a story written by a senior US pharmacist named Truman Lastinger and published in the US magazine, Drug Topics. Because Truman Lastinger and I are of similar vintage I could strongly identify with the period…
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The Move Towards PBS Privatisation – It is a Possibility and Could Provide a Wrecking Ball for Community Pharmacy
I am always suspicious of government motivation when they move the chess pieces around the board without an appropriate explanation. Dating back to the start of the Coalition taking power there was discussion that highlighted the poorly defined role private health insurance plays in the funding and delivery of Australian health care, and how government…
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A Pharmacy Clinical Service Model – Innovating and Adapting from Others
Recently, in my capacity as a management consultant, I was asked to review some policies for a security company I had an association with, in a health capacity. Security guards, because of their continual work during the night and early mornings, suffer from health problems related to their interrupted circadian rhythms. The first casualty is…
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Make the Right Turn at the Next Crossroads
In the latest edition of Drug Topics, senior pharmacist Truman Lastinger describes a scenario for what he describes as Retail Pharmacy in the US. Because US pharmacy is a bit ahead in evolution than Australian pharmacy his comments are very relevant for today’s Australian pharmacy, the practice of which has split into three components- Retail…
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A Happy Workplace is also a Profitable Business Environment
A happy workplace is one that is characterised by good leadership generating good policies, forward planning and capital recruitment, with all of that activity interpreted by good managers. Note that I use the word “interpret” for managers whose primary function is simply to make good decisions. Words can sometimes be misleading and if they ambiguously…