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Clinical Services – What Patients Will Pay For
Pharmacists have always been well regarded by their patients for their ability to deliver health literacy programs, over the counter in semi-private spaces in roughly three to five minute segments. Generally, this service has been delivered free of charge and it has formed a nearly invisible component of “core” business. Only invisible because it was free,…
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Pathology Services – Better Options for Community Pharmacy
The recent pressure applied by the AMA and the RACGP in respect of the Sigma / Sonic Healthcare Project, to offer paid pathology tests through the AMCAL franchise must be bordering on unacceptable conduct under the Australian Trade Practices Act. The medical profession is looking and acting more like a cartel in every respect and…
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Setting up an Open Innovation Program
Let’s face it – community pharmacy is in a knowledge transfer bind. It can no longer function under its own self reliance. It is bogged down because pharmacy leadership has developed hardening of the arteries and finds itself immobile inside each of its traditional infrastructures. The primary cause is twofold: * Information is being collated…
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Statins are for primary prevention of cardiovascular disease….really?
Well, well, well…….even pharmacy publications are now casting doubts over the effectiveness of statin therapy in primary prevention of cardiovascular disease. What does this mean to the pharmacist when a patient asks “do I really need to take this medicine for my cholesterol?” and goes on to describe a fuzzy memory, aching muscles and generally…
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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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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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A4M Proposes a $1 trillion health cost save for US – why not Australia?
The American Academy for Anti-Ageing (A4M) is a medical group researching and treating the ageing process through utilising the concept of Integrative Medicine. They have come up with a simplified 10 point proposal designed to slash major costs from the health bill in the US – they say reductions of up to $1 trillion are…
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The Patient Proposition
I am wondering if there are any pharmacists out there who have ever created a written proposal to recruit patients to your practice. The reason I ask is that so many pharmacists in their communications with each other or with other health professionals, talk in terms of having “customers”, with the word “patient” appearing spasmodically…
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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…