This Month in Pharmacy - June 2009

• Printer-friendly version
• Send to friend
• PDF version
• Share

	From the desk of the editor articles by this author...
Introducing current ideas, perspectives and issues, to the profession of pharmacy

Welcome to the June edition of i2P, and to our new format. This edition also marks some changes in the type of content we are delivering. While we still retain our core material of opinion and advocacy pertaining to the pharmacy profession, we recognise the need for more information from all sources around the world, to enable pharmacists and pharmacies to lift their game in an increasingly competitive environment.
Our new design means that all this information can be accessed virtually in the centre of the home page and we encourage you to investigate the tripartite links that can access a range of material under the headings "Recent News", "Opinion" and "Pharmedia Commentary".
Our regular columnists are found under this editorial down the left hand side.
I think that as you explore the new site you will find some useful content that can only increase as we settle down in the management of the site.

open this article full screen

When we first began our publication back in February 2000, competitors equated to supermarkets alone. This was because the prime threats to the profession were perceived to be threats to pharmacies alone. Pharmacy practitioners and pharmacies were synonymous and there was mutual respect between pharmacy owners and employed pharmacists.
That respect has been considerably weakened because of federal government recognition of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia (PGA) as the lead pharmacy organisation in its dealings.
The attitude of pharmacy owners has changed from that of colleague (equal status) to a master/servant (unequal status).
While there has been considerable benefit to pharmacies, individual pharmacists and professional practice have been left behind, with the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia trying to bridge gaps with limited resources.
This has made the profession lopsided and vulnerable, with other health professionals beginning to erode pharmacy's core role in primary health care.
Real development of professional services and new revenue streams are almost non existent.
In fact, you will not find pharmacy on the radar in government circles when primary health care is discussed, and it is now lumped in with "Allied Health" when categorised.
The triad of doctor-pharmacist-nurse is now fractured, and pharmacy is seen only as a supply organisation.
The margins on dispensing continually shrink, leaving pharmacy owners a margin that allows for minimal investment in professional development and activity.

The Pharmacy Guild of Australia promotes the concept of specialised software systems (e.g. Mirixa) as evidence of its commitment to professional development, to be managed by pharmacy owners with a bias to supply (rather than services) and time-poor employed pharmacists expected to manage the new systems in an environment that is not oriented to professional service delivery. As well, these systems come from a foreign culture, are imposed from a "top down" perspective and masquerade as an ultimate income enhancement to the PGA and its executive, who continue to live in a lifestyle of the "rich and famous", even in these difficult financial times.
Members must surely begin to question PGA policies  that produce diminishing returns from dispensing, increasing paperwork that is unnecessary, (a substanial amount being able to be controlled by government itself e.g tracking current Medicare numbers etc.) and "smoke and mirrors" professional systems that are beginning to cost and make a dent in the member "bottom line".

i2P was one of the first publications to alert their readers to the threats posed to pharmacist practitioners from nurses, GP's, naturopaths and other health practitioners and when we first reported on that trend, few took a hard look at what was happening.

The time is past due for independent pharmacists to begin a stronger advocacy for their cause.
This probably means developing a new employer organisation to embrace the needs of pharmacist practitioner companies, that wish to research and develop innovative pharmacy professional services. Note that it is only these types of practitioners that could secure prescribing rights.
This, because of the separation from the supply side of pharmacy and the elimination of conflict of interest.
It would also require legislative support to ensure no pecuniary interest in practitioner companies by pharmacy owners, and likewise, practitioners to have no pecuniary interest in pharmacies.
With the right attitude these professional service companies would enhance the offering of a pharmacy and would be cost neutral at worst.
Optimally, they would produce income for pharmacies in the form of rental and the sale of back-office support activities.

The PGA, through discriminatory policies, has engineered this split in the profession and there does not seem to be any "white knight" organisation to embrace the practitioners that are not infiltrated by the PGA.

Therefore practitioners must go it alone in this brave new world, particularly with some form of deregulation just around the corner.