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MedsASSIST May Prove To Be A Useful Long Term Monitoring Tool
The MedsASSIST system, designed to monitor pharmacy sales of codeine products, has reached the stage of progressing to stage two of a pilot, involving approximately 150 pharmacies in the Newcastle and North Queensland regions. The system is being introduced because government was intending to reschedule codeine to schedule 4 (prescription only) status. Addiction to prescription…
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A Home Doesn’t Need to Have a Single Roof – Because it Might Need to be a Neighbourhood
The “buzz words” floating around the newly discovered world of primary health care are “Patient-Centred Homes”, a concept where a focus is generated on a patient through a triage process where patients are provided an efficient sequential introduction to the health resource most required by those patients under the one roof. Results to date in…
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Antibiotics – are we doing out bit?
Reduced antibiotic prescribing is associated with lower patient satisfaction on the national General Practice Patient Survey, according to a new study by King’s College London. The NHS GP Patient Survey is a component of the NHS Quality Outcomes Framework that informs GP’s pay-for-performance. Do we support our local GP’s decision not to prescribe an antibiotic?…
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Drug Overdose Increasing – Known Solutions Ignored
Dear Colleagues, BMJ article: increasing overdoses but they ignore known solutions (+ Hari TED talk). There is no more ‘final’ statistic regarding drug use than overdose deaths. And in England the official figures go back to Victorian times, then often involving opium, laudanum and other strong drugs including alcohol. The British Coroner’s Act of 1844…
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The Paris Attacks – an Impetus for Community Pharmacy to be an Emergency Triage Point
Recently, I have written two articles relating to triaged services from a pharmacy environment and how community pharmacy could be integrated into a public emergency system. In these articles I made the proposition that Location Rules night have more meaning if pharmacies were able to be strategically located throughout Australia because of the need to…
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Our Thinking and Thought Leadership is Reflected
I2P has long espoused that community pharmacy has deep roots embedded in patient centering and engagement and has won all of its “stripes” on the basis of all the things that our antecedents did right. Those “roots” were responsible for our unique style of “over-the-counter prescribing” as well has building a market in compunded prescriptions…
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Phoctors and Docpharms
In these days of constant change or business disruption we often find ourselves in a constant state of anxiety. This is not good for mental health and is probably the underlying reason why mental health issues have shown such a massive increase across the spectrum of entire populations, over the past five years As a…
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A Constant Stream of Expensive Drugs
Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, November 16, 2015 It would be novel indeed to see a news media report entitled “Life- Saving Vitamins.” That’s a headline about vitamins that would be true for once. Instead, I see folks on TV speaking about those drugs they so desperately “need” while they plead with drug companies to just…
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Leadership, Future Direction, Public Health and Triage Services
Most pharmacists recognise the need to expand their focus from dispensing to something wider. Community pharmacy is the most visible “face” of pharmacy, but its leadership struggles to keep its members focused on creative pathways that utilise the natural advantages of a community pharmacy – convenient location, health professional availability and access, a “core” duality…
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Hay fever options
An interesting article written by a number of academics promises to give some relief to the 15% of Australians who experience hay fever, or allergic rhinitis. Predictably, they list oral and nasal decongestants, antihistamines, nasal steroid sprays and immunotherapy as the best medical options. I was therefore surprised to note the absence of isotonic saline…