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Location Rules Need to be Re-purposed
For the best part of 12 months it has been an open secret that Location Rules for pharmacies would pass muster as being of sufficient “public benefit” for them to remain in place. Even the chair of the King Review very early in his investigation, appeared to favour retention of the rules. For those of…
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Ransomeware Attacks Reported in Australia & Globally
A recent alert from an Internet security organisation: “For a few hours, bad news is spreading quickly about a massive wave of infections by a new ransomware called “WannaCry”. We are still trying to collect more information about it. It seems that 45K attacks were detected from 74 differents countries: Big targets have been telecom…
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Health Literacy – A Concept for a Valid Direction for Community Pharmacy
Recently, I had a conversation with a health professional involved in the public health system. Research had emerged that large pockets of populations were experiencing epidemic levels of chronic illness such as obesity, diabetes, asthma, and heart disease. These population pockets correlated with areas of low socio-economic households where people had generally poor diets and…
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Guardrails – Why they Need Continual Analysis and exist with a Balanced Direction
Guardrails “A large, freshly-paved parking lot has no boundaries. You can drive in any direction, free to speed to your destination. But once there’s more than a few cars driving, traffic stops. It’s too risky, there are too many uncertainties. A car could come at you from any direction, and so we crawl. Flow is…
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Developing a Single Patient View
From the last business cycle to the current version, pharmacists and community pharmacies have undergone some profound experiences and rapid change. The transition to now is leaving in its wake a sense of indecision and while many opportunities have arisen to improve pharmacist skills and community pharmacy development, only a small number of talented individuals…
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Planning for Uncertainty and Anxiety
To say that pharmacy began the current fiscal year with a high level of uncertainty – a major contributor to anxiety levels – is to state the obvious. Every person working within the pharmaceutical industry has been affected, with employed pharmacists complaining about the poor incomes they receive and fresh reports of a potential for…
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Design for a Medication Safety Plan
The problem of creating a quality professional pharmacy practice for community pharmacy is often in conflict with the metrics required to provide a solid business infrastructure. Without a sound infrastructure there is no support to underpin a professional practice, so Codes of Conduct and minimum levels for Standards of Practice have to be developed. Increased…
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The State We Are In
NONE of our so called representative bodies have accepted ANY RESPONSIBILITY for the downright dismal and depressing state the so called Pharmacy profession finds itself in. The Pharmacy Guild- represents Pharmacy owners who would only comprise some 10-15% of ALL the 29,150 Pharmacists on the AHPRA register (Nov 2015 figures). The Guild has a major…
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Pharmacy Paradigm Shift is Occurring – Vision Still Needed
Australia needs a new vision for care models and funding to ensure healthcare remains sustainable and accessible into the future, according to a report published by the George Institute recently, following consultation with various health organisations. “The report recognises the growing burden of chronic disease as a driver in increasing health costs. Evidence of this…
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Pharmacists – Who Works for your Best Interests?
Now that the dust has settled around negotiations for 6CPA and that word “certainty” has crept back into the vocabulary once more, we are supposed to now relax and get on with the job of future-proofing the profession of pharmacy. But what “certainties” can we count on? With the current business model still having a…