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We are Judged Within Seven Seconds of Meeting Somebody
We are head down, tail up, working our way through a pile of prescriptions across the day, striving to use the skills that we are famous and respected for. Some of the people waiting for scripts will be people we already know. Others will be brand new patients, who we are engaging with for the…
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Marketing Professional Services – Tactics & Strategies
Pharmacists are slowly coming to grips with the provision of professional services and are fleshing out suitable business models very cautiously. In part, this caution arises out of a sense of uncertainty because of the culture change that has to be embraced in converting what was previously an unstructured service (provided free of charge) to…
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Confusion reigns
Because of the rather appalling protection given by the 2017 vaccination campaign, I wonder where we will go with the 2018 version. There’s certainly mixed messages about the relative effectiveness we can expect. Interestingly, I posed this question on social media a few days ago. What might we expect? Will you get vaccinated? The responses…
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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…
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How did we go?
The codeine debacle has come and gone, and I’m not sure if our profession has come out of this squeaky clean. Judging by the number of media queries around the place, it’s timely to look back and see if this issue could have been handled better. And those enquiries and still coming. In retrospect, might…
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Blockchain – a trust system that could underwrite health information exchanges and integrate with other trust systems.
Blockchain is a relatively new technology system that can be customised to transact trusted actions, not being under a centralised control involving governments or banks. It is closely associated with the concept of Bitcoin, which is described as a form of financial currency called “cryptocurrency”. Many new cryptocurrencies have been launched, most emulating Bitcoin’s success in…
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Opioids & Non-opioids
I’m a turmeric, magnesium powder, lipoic acid, vitamin B12, vitamin D, arnica and omega-3 krill oil type of person when it comes to pain. I see great results when anybody in pain is empowered to make some decisions based on their expectations, rather than be told what they need, without adequate explanations of the range…
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Why Amazon’s Entry to the Australian Pharmacy Market May Drive Cultural Change, New Innovation and Promote Young Pharmacists
Amazon is about to enter the Australian retail market and is known to be interested in adding pharmacy to its retail mix of products and services. Amazon has developed “entry point technology” to a consumer’s home. It is called the Echo system and it is powered by voice activation technology called “Alexa” which is of…
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Please give me eye contact!
It what seems obvious findings, patients prefer their doctors to be engaging in conversation, and to ignore any online screens. As electronic medical records become more common, it’s not unusual for doctors to enter data into a computer as they talk with their patients. Doctors seeing patients for the first time, when trying to build…
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“Pushy” customers or are they merely “informed”?
I was rather puzzled when reading an article on the challenges of a “pushy” customer and the pressures placed on student pharmacists. I’m puzzled because we, in pharmacy, have lost the skills of listening. We have become so “medicalised” that we now seem to “tell” rather than “partner in a satisfactory outcome”. Whether the educators…