Health Delivery Initiatives

"The good news is that pharmacists can do it more conveniently and at a lower cost for patients and for the taxpayer. When Mom takes the baby to the ER for diaper rash, the baby gets great service, but it's terribly expensive for a rash that a pharmacist can treat very well."
Frank Scorpiniti, CEO, Rexall

The above beggars the imagination; a mother taking a baby to the local hospital's emergency room because of diaper rash? Please, have a little more respect for the intelligence of the young mothers of infants. Diaper rash is a common occurrence, and word-of-mouth between coevals, between mother and daughter, between sisters and friends, ensures that remedies are readily apparent and available.

Not to say it wouldn't have occurred to said mother to ask advice of her local pharmacist in any event. And in the event a really serious situation evolved respecting infection resulting from stubborn diaper rash, that's the time the mother could present to her general practitioner - or to the ER.

Other than the silly example given, and absent the obvious gains to be made by generic-drug pharmaceutical companies in Canada, the initiative by the country's pharmacists' organization in issuing a document titled 9,000 Points of Care, (the number representing the number of pharmacists practising in Canada), it seems like an idea whose time has come.

In point of fact, consumers of prescription drugs, patients for whom drug protocols have been prescribed by their physicians already do, in large part, take advice from dispensing pharmacists. Most druggists offer advice in areas where they are aware what the prescribed medication can do, along with side effects, and they also offer to print out broadsheets from computer-based pharmaceutical libraries to aid in further information availability.

Revisioning the added-value performance these professionals skilled in the dispensation of drugs represents an obvious idea waiting to be formalized by acceptance. Their knowledge is indispensable to their role in which people trust them to offer alerts that their doctors may have skipped or was not aware of, in the use of specific drugs. Pharmacists are known to give their useful advice with a view to being helpful.

The recommendation that allowing pharmacists to treat minor ailments, administer an array of vaccines and manage patients with chronic diseases, is a step in the right direction. It would, as promised, free up time for doctors already overworked, curb emergency room visits, and in the process provide cost-savings to the health care system.

Pharmacists' keen eye and memory often enough catch prescription errors, and they contact the prescribing doctor for clarification. They professionally vet what they are dispensing with an eye to being of service across the board, both to the doctors who prescribe medication and may have prescribed an inappropriate medication and the patients, in the case of someone already on a protocol, may have been prescribed an incorrect dosage.

Pharmacists undertake, on behalf of their customers, to make direct contact with the health professional concerned, to straighten out the matter, thus saving the patient from the potential of additional health problems relating to medication. What's in it for the generic drug manufacturers, who have partnered with the pharmacists in the initiatives set out in this white paper?

In Canada it can take months for provinces to list generic drugs on their drug-plan formulary, once they are approved by Health Canada. In the United States and likely other industrialized countries, that listing is immediate, once federal approval is given.  The instant listing of generics would be yet another useful update in the country's universal health care procedures.

Better use of generic drugs could save as much as $9-billion over a three-year period, according to the report. "In the U.S., the minute you have an approval, those cost savings are being felt in the health care system .. That's real money we're leaving on the table here in Canada", stated Jeff Watson, CEO of Apotex North America.

"For the most part, pharmacists are very well trained for everything we are suggesting. They have all the skills and they have the interest", says Dominic Pilla, CEO of Shoppers Drug Mart. To permit pharmacists to prescribe medication to people for acne, cold sores, rashes and hay fever is logical enough; most already do, with counter-top remedies.

Permitting pharmacists to administer flu shots as well as other vaccines, is already done in some of the provinces. And pharmacists are skilled and knowledgeable enough about chronic conditions like diabetes and hypertension to allow them to adjust dosages, renew prescriptions and speak with patients about their protocol management. Billing the related province for these services.

It's about time. About saving time, and it's about easy availability, and cost-savings.