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Do we do enough for our statin patients?
Even though statins are the “go-to” therapy for lowering “bad” cholesterol, other treatments can effectively reduce the risk of future heart problems according to a new evidence review. The Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that a heart-healthy diet can confer the same level of heart health protection as statins. When we dispense a…
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Do You Promote Free Advice?
Frequently there is a lament recycled by pharmacy commentators that the business model for community pharmacy has relied on providing services through the margins received for recommended products. That model is still a valid part of community pharmacy culture, except that it has not been appropriately adjusted to counter market changes that have occurred over…
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A Cautious Introduction of Marijuana into Your Pharmacy
Recently, an Israelis company lodged an application to approve its topical cannabis derived products for sale in the Australian market place. So topical marijuana may be the first entrant in the Australian pharmacy market. Some marijuana products already exist in the retail market place – but they are for external use only. Hemp oil, for…
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Avatars May Take Over Patient Communications – Where to from there?
Global Pharma’s are known to be funding the development of systems to deal directly with patients. These systems will involve the use of Artificial Intelligence and the use of Volumetric 3D immersion technologies. The former will allow delivery of technical information through well modulated voice transmission, while the latter will provide an “avatar” transformed from…
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Embracing the Empowered Patient
The year 2016 ushered in a range of problems that caught health care providers generally unprepared as events unfolded. We all tend to keep in our own silos and do not necessarily take on an awareness with what is happening in the world of doctors, nurses and allied health practitioners unless they impact us directly…
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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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Trust – It Always Has to be Worked at
Pharmacy always appears in national polls measuring trust, and always in the first three, with results for pharmacists, nurses and doctors all highly ranked and all close together. Trust is an elusive concept to quantify and when evaluating, only a subjective opinion can be formed as a measurement. But in human beings it is something…
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Disruptive Technology for Patient Engagement
New technologies pave the way for innovation to drive business practices in pharmacy. Unfortunately, innovation appears to be a slow process in Australian pharmacies and as a result there is a pent-up frustration among young pharmacists that nothing is happening. On the other side of the coin there seems to be a majority of pharmacy…
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Blackmore’s New Flagship Store – Now There’s a Model for Pharmacy!
Blackmores have designed and opened an innovative flagship store that offers the complete wellbeing experience, with rooms for private consultations with qualified naturopaths, a modern ‘Mindful Ocean’ system to assess mindfulness, the Wellbeing Bar for food and drink tasting as well as offering the comprehensive Blackmores’ product range. Located on Level 5 of Westfield, Bondi Junction, the…
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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…