Opportunities in
Community Pharmacy practice, a Perspective for Indian Pharmacist
Prof Anantha Naik Nagappa, Senior Faculty, SCS College of
Pharmacy, Harapanahalli 583131, Karnataka India
Community
pharmacy is hidden treasure for Public health, when it comes out in action, it
can lead to a big revolution in healthcare delivery. The present system of
product centric market is going to be washed away and patient centric care
shall take the place. The pharmacist in India mainly depends upon the sales
margin and over focus on increasing the turn over so that profits remain always
green. However in its attempt, a serious negative health care delivery
affecting the health consumers and patients who are sponsors for pharmacy are
affected. This is what happening resulting in poor quality of services. The
Pharmacy industry, Prescribers, Regulators and Government are not showing
interest due to conflict of interest, and only the patients and health consumers
are only adversaries in present health care delivery system.
The
patients and health consumers are tolerating the current system of delivery as
they were ignorant and do not have proper advocates to represent their point of
view and demand fair transparent health care delivery, which they are missing
all these years. The pharmacist especially the Doctor of Pharmacy
practiceioners are going to emerge as advocates for patients and healthcare
consumers. Keeping and updating the
patient records by community pharmacist and consulting of Doctor of pharmacy is
going to be one of the professional practices, giving lots of opportunity to
the public .Currently, the maintenance of
individual patient profile and medication history is not done in India
at all. If is offered as a service, it can bring the transparency and openness
which automatically gives an opportunity to correct the prescriptions and avoid
irrational prescribing to a standing halt.
The
pharmacy practice guidelines 2015, defines that all registered pharmacist as
drug information specialists who are
entitled to provide the services of clinical pharmacist as fallowing
- “Drug Information
Pharmacist” means an individual currently registered who works in a
community pharmacy/hospital Pharmacy/teaching hospital/ other health
care settings and provides information and advice regarding drug
interactions, side effects, dosage and proper medication storage to
patients/physicians/dentists/other health care professionals.
- “Clinical Pharmacist”
means an individual currently registered and who provides patient
care that optimizes the use of medication and promotes health,
wellness and disease prevention. Clinical
pharmacists care for patients in all health care settings. Clinical
pharmacists often collaborate with physicians and other healthcare
professionals.
As
for the patient records a registered pharmacist has to mandatory maintain
the patient records are concerned.
•
Every registered pharmacist shall maintain the
medical / prescription records pertaining to his / her patients for a period of
5 years from the date of commencement of the treatment as laid down by the
Pharmacy Council of India in Appendix II Pharmacy Practice Guidelines 2015
•
If any request is made for medical records
either by the patients/authorized attendant or legal authorities involved, the
same may be duly acknowledged and documents shall be issued within the period
of 72 hours.
•
Efforts shall be made to computerize
medical/prescription records for quick retrieval.
These
provisions and guidelines in the law is going to be the game changer in health
care delivery. It shall empower the patients with much required data, regarding
how they were given treatments. They
shall be asking the pharmacist to provide services. Hence there can be huge job
openings not only for Doctor of Pharmacy but also to B.Pharm and D.Pharm holders. Every patient and health consumer
are ready to provide a fee for maintaining their health and medication
profiles.
For
example, if the patient is prescribed with any medicine, the patient with his
record can approach the pharmacist to know is it appropriate to use the
medicines. He may also learn about the medication and become aware regarding
the importance of medication in the disease management. It is very important as
the patient shall be taking medicine as prescribed as because he is aware of
his co operation in improving his health.
The opportunity for pharmacist in drug information services are not just
confined to patients, but also other
fellow healthcare providers like Doctors, Nurses and Lawyers in regular
practice and in medico legal cases. The challenge before the pharmacist is to
prove his professional credentials as advocates of patient safety and establish
a professional image which is currently at ground 0. The public and peer
healthcare practitioner either depend on Pharmaceutical industry or the
Internet. Major drawback of Industry provided information is tainted with
marketing practices and internet information is not authenticated and hence not
reliable. The clinical pharmacist who is trained in the aspects of medicine is
competent to provide one to one information, which can be subject verification
and scrutiny. This is why the developed country avail the well trained clinical
pharmacist for the information needs in therapeutics. The pharmacist has to
establish their competence as fit for practice every year or two as they have
to get fresh license to practice pharmacy profession and drug information
services. Such a development is seen in India, as much drug use related safety
issues are reported in media, highlighting the failure of current health care
delivery being incompetent to contain and assure patient safety.
No comments:
Post a Comment