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Be accountable if you want to count
The recent political silly season is over – finally – and once again, I was listening for one particular word in the endless ads that peppered the airwaves: accountability. It seems like the only time you hear that word is in the context of blaming one’s opponent for lack of it. I suspect that the…
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Pharmacists may be intellectually bankrupt today – financially bankrupt tomorrow
Pharmacists collectively deserve the derogatory comments proffered regularly by the AMA about providing professional services between the “toilet paper and the toothpaste”. Not enough has been done by pharmacy leadership organisations or individual pharmacy proprietors in terms of investment in appropriate clinical spaces. Nothing in terms of spatial identity and patient comfort has evolved anywhere…
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Nutrition issues – another opportunity
Deakin University has come to the conclusion that most doctors are ill-equipped to identify and manage the nutritional needs of patients. Listening to my patients tell me that their GPs never allows them to eat eggs, because of the effects on their cholesterol, supports that Deakin conclusion. Deakin found for example, that a mere 15%…
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Pricing- Get it Right While Marketing in the Right Direction
This article is intended as a reference article for the marketing of professional services to assist all pharmacists (owners and individual practitioners) to succeed in a new paradigm of pharmacy with its traditional core business of dispensing plus free advice, with the advice component being developed to paid professional services (core expansion). Pharmacists are highly…
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“Ask Your Pharmacist” – the New and Not so New PGA Initiative
The landscape of pharmacy, until very recent times, has lacked affirmation and direction. The latest television advertisement developed by the PGA exhorts the general public to “ask more” about what their pharmacy provides, and then has the walls of the pharmacy open out in the form of a cross, each arm of the cross suggesting…
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The Battle Clinical Pharmacists Have to Win
I was pleased to see an opinion article by Jeff Shaw, recently published in Pharmacy News. Basically, he was outlining how the pharmacy landscape had changed since 1996 where his pharmacy students at that time thought the class titled “Clinical Pharmacy” was one more designed for hospital pharmacists. He said: “Fifteen years on the whole…
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A successful person is an average person, focused
I love golf – both playing and watching the pros – so you can imagine my delight when my wife Carol Ann surprised me for my birthday with a trip to watch the Ryder Cup in Glasgow, Scotland, in late September. What a memorable experience, one that’s been on my bucket list for a long…
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Consumer Perspective in Service Design Innovation
Take the patient’s perspective when designing a new service model. Or, using the current “buzz” phrase, you need to become “patient-centred”. Some of the best innovations are brilliant in their after-the-fact simplicity. Take the US-based Minute Clinic. We all know “an ounce of prevention…” yet most of us still don’t go to the doctor for…
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Unconditional Expenditure
Editor’s Note: The following brief article by Barry Urquhart has been included as a baseline for pharmacists to consider what “unconditional markets” they may be associated with from within their pharmacy. Barry talks about the metrics of pet food as being one example. Would not pet medicines fit into a similar category? And what about…
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Make a commitment to succeed
If you want to excel at anything in life you need to be committed. If you only want to be good enough to get by, then a commitment to excellence is not necessary. If you are committed to a cause, you don’t need to tell anyone. They can tell from your actions. I often wonder…