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Another Big Yellow Box Format
For some time the name “Big Yellow Box” has been the unofficial title given to a certain warehouse-type pharmacy group. Psychologically it has been determined that the colour yellow in association with retail environments creates a flow-on effect of “cheapness” or “low cost” in a consumer’s mind. Many major retailers include large slabs of the…
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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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Your Dispensary – Core Business Could Evaporate
This year will be “crunch time” for most community pharmacies who have not yet decided on adopting disruptive technologies as a means of improving the “bottom line” of their pharmacy. I am thinking specifically the decision to purchase a robotic dispensing machine. It is almost a “no-brainer”. Robotic dispensing equipment has been available to pharmacy…
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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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Fish Oil Capsules Get Blamed For Unreported Drug Interactions – Now THERE’S a Surprise . . .
Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, May 4, 2016 In what is getting to be known as the anti-dietary supplement journal, JAMA Internal Medicine is at it yet again. The journal recently reported on changes in prescription drug and dietary supplements from 2005 to 2011, with prescription drug use rising from 84.1% to 87.7% and dietary supplements from 51.8%…
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How Australia is losing the health fight
Imagine telling the good folk of 1990 that in the near future, we’d be redesigning hospitals to accommodate the influx of obese patients.Or that almost all of our sporting legends would be contractually obliged to advertise alcohol. Or most kids would be driven less than a kilometre to and from school. Twenty-five years ago, these…
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Marketing Focus – Essays on Management & Marketing
HOLD BACK THE TIDE A measure of just how much some union officials are out of touch is the current mass media advertising campaign being conducted by the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association in Western Australia. In essence, it is a personal attack on the West Australian Premier, Colin Barnett, and his legislative initiatives…
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Selling is not all about the product
Over my decades in business, I’ve noticed a baffling trend: “sales” has become a dirty word. I’m on a life-long campaign to change that. In fact, many companies no longer call sales people sales people. They have account executives or account specialists, business developers, client advisers, relationship consultants, territory managers and numerous other monikers. I…
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What are you Competing on?
The profession is going backwards. Seth Godin has obviously attended APP16…..here’s his latest and it’s so timely as many pharmacists try and emulate the yellow box method. What are you competing on? It’s pretty easy to figure out what you’re competing for—attention, a new gig, a promotion, a sale… But what is your edge? In…
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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…