Pharmacy Inadequately Prepared for Boomer Retirement

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	Staff Writer articles by this author...
Editing and Researching news and stories about global and local Pharmacy Issues

Pharmacy is totally unprepared for the increasing levels of "baby boomer" retirement simply because few community pharmacies have any outreach services except for their free delivery service for prescriptions.
In a rapidly outdated practice setting, concentrating totally on retailing and unrelated health issues, pharmacy professionals are rapidly becoming redundant in the face of automated dispensing machines, prescribing nurses, registered naturopaths and deregulation, when approval numbers protecting existing pharmacies may simply disappear.
The nurses seem to be on the right track with their network of home services that can be upgraded to keep people out of hospitals.

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More community health care the remedy for ailing hospitals

In response to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) report on hospitals, the Australian Nursing Federation (ANF) has said the best remedy for Australia’s hospitals is to keep people out of them.

“Hospital waiting lists will continue to blow out unless governments act now to give Australians access to quick and effective health care in their communities,” ANF federal secretary Ged Kearney said.

The ANF want community health centers expanded to all areas of Australia.

“Let’s get working on building community health centres where people can get quick and effective health care from a range of health professionals, appropriate to the needs of each community,” Ms Kearney said.

“If there is a young community with lots of new families, emphasise maternity services, maternal and child health care, if it is older, have more aged care services.

"We need community health care centres that will not only treat illnesses but can also keep people healthy through community health and lifestyle programs, managing chronic disease and targeted health services".

The report shows that 9% of hospital admissions are preventable, keeping people out of hospital is the thing that will reduce the pressure, according to the ANF.

Pharmacy in the home is something that i2P has been pushing for some time.
Pharmacists simply do not seem capable of developing Internet support services or electronic monitoring to assist fail/aged patients to be compliant with their dose administration aids or other medication management systems.
Meanwhile, it appears that more pressure will be applied to PBS margins making it more financially difficult to develop any services at all.
I think we all knew that the politicians were never going to keep their word.
It would be too much out of character
Recent media plants about pharmacy profit rorts, (while normal around the time a new agreement is to be negotiated), are irritating in the extreme as pharmacy has staggred from one review to the next waiting for that time when all will be peaceful and stable.
Fair suck of the sauce bottle mate!