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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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Have we lost our therapeutic gaze?
How often do we listen quickly to a request, or to a brief description of some symptom picture? Do we really give our patients our 100% focus, and dismiss the temptation to avert our gaze from that patient in front of you to catch the attention of another person? I hear similar things from patients…
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Social Justice Programs – An Opportunity for a Patient Engagement and Health Literacy Expansion
Now that Location Rules have been made more certain through enabling legislation, it provides a level of certainty in respect of investing in services which would provide a community benefit, that in turn, could eventually be funded through government along the already familiar experience of a public/private partnership. i2P has previously expressed the opinion that…
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Scotland’s Pharmacist Practitioner Champions
Perhaps it is because of my Scottish heritage, but I am continually dawn to the Scottish business model for community pharmacy, funded and developed in a genuine partnership between community pharmacists and government. One of its lesser publicised components is the funding of “Practitioner Champions”. It’s not a lot of money (£300,000 funding for this year),…
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The Productivity Commission Recommendation to decouple pharmacists from dispensing mirrors a progressive Scottish community pharmacy culture
Community Pharmacy Scotland (CPS) is the organisation which represents community pharmacy owners throughout Scotland in almost every aspect of their working lives, and is the voice of these vital healthcare professionals north of the English Border, as they deliver pharmaceutical care to the people of Scotland. It is therefore, the Scottish equivalent of the Pharmacy…
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Arrogance and business don’t mix
In a village long ago lived a young boy who loved nothing as much as competing in athletic contests. Because he was fit and strong, he usually triumphed and grew to love the adulation he received from the villagers around him. One day he challenged two other youths to a race from one end of…
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What turf war??
Why do we keep apologising so much? I wrote on my Facebook page recently how concerned I was at the perceived turf war between GPs and pharmacists. One of the first comments was that I was “doctor bashing”. It seems normal these days that rational, sensible discussions are a thing of the past. Now, you…
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Pharmacists are primary in healthcare and its economics
One of the most successful marketing slogans ever developed by the Pharmacy Guild of Australia (PGA) was: “Ask your family chemist – he knows!” The public response to it was massive and just seemed to hit the right nerve. Its popularity eventually irritated the medical profession who couldn’t understand how a pharmacist might know more…
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The worst failure is the failure to try
That is the message I hear every spring when I attend the Horatio Alger Awards Ceremony in Washington, D.C., where 10 new members are inducted annually. I was honored to be one of them in 2004, during the short speeches given by new members to the audience, which includes more than 100. Failure can become…
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Complementary Medicine – Are You In or Are you Out?
I’m tired of the same old, same old criticisms of complementary medicines being thrown by sensationalizing media like 4Corners and the like. Mind you, some of their research shows that some pharmacists are happy to bank the dollars generated by the slick marketing of these products by a variety of companies. Where do you sit…