1 Essentials
1 Essentials
1 Essentials
How have pharmacists’ roles in delivering pharmaceutical products and services evolved over
the past few decades? What roles and functions do pharmacists perform today?
- Pharmacists and pharmacy students have unlimited opportunities. As time goes by, that
change is the only permanent thing in the world pharmacists’ roles also change from doing “daily
handling and preparing of remedies in common use” where they’re not considered health care
professionals. To now “administering, counseling, dispensing, and etc.” Pharmacists’ evolve
through adapting changes. Employers will be seeking seeking pharmacists who can be leaders
in this changing environment so that patients will receive the best quality of care. That at times
they need to have sharp business acumen to survive, to have keen sense of how to manage
time and people to provided better services throughout that led dramatic changes in pharmacy
in the coming years. Encountering different reports/studies about pharmacists that slowed the
expansion of pharmaceutical industry and other health care professionals that affects lost sight
to communicate with patients. It paved a way for the clinical pharmacy movement to capture the
essence of drug use control concept and promoted pharmacists’ role as therapeutic advisor.
Also, with adapting to trends it changes the organization of pharmacy workforce and current
market for pharmaceuticals. Having chain, supermarket, and mass merchandiser in a pharmacy.
Studies suggested that pharmacists willing and clinically knowledgeable enough to provide
pharmaceutical care face significant barriers in chain environment. New venues for outpatient
pharmacy services that virtually exclude face to face consultation with patients have evolved.
Year 2005, mail-order pharmacy operations had secured 19.1% of the market share for
outpatient prescription drugs. Lastly, the implementation of internet pharmacy sites play a big
role to what pharmacy today and in the future.
Roles and functions of pharmacy today are increasingly involved with providing services
in addition to medications and are taking greater responsibility for patients. Also they’ve become
more integrated into health care delivery teams that coordinate patient care through the
implementation of guidelines and treatment algorithms. Pharmacist operate as part of health
care delivery system largely driven by reimbursements from third-party payers who insist on
obtaining high-quality patient care at lowest possible cost.
2. What is the significance of management within the context of the pharmaceutical care and
medication therapy management movements? Why has its significance typically been
overlooked by pharmacists and pharmacy students?
3. What are some of the myths surrounding the confluence of business practices and the
provision of patient care by pharmacists?
- Myths that confluence business practices and the provision patients care by
pharmacists. First, the practice pharmacy is ethically inconsistent with good business that an
incident diluting chemotherapeutic drugs to spare inventory costs demonstrated that health care
professions are not without unscrupulous members. Some people believe that companies
involved in the sale of health care goods and services should be philanthropic in nature and are
upset that companies profit from consumers’ medical needs. With these misconducts most
companies and persons involved in business operations conduct themselves in an appropriate
manner. Second, Business is not a profession guided by ethical standards, pharmacists and
pharmacy students generally are cognizant of the vast number of rules and regulations that
govern pharmacy but are less aware of the standards governing practice in advertising,
accounting, and interstate commerce. Many of the rules and regulations governing pharmacy
practice were borrowed from legislation existing in sectors other than health care. In business,
quality of care is secondary to generating profits, this misconception likely results from the efforts
by payers of health care and by managers to control costs. That came to a point where health
care consumers have little choice but to become more discerning shoppers of health care
services. Because resources are limited, the number of services and products provided to
consumers cannot be bound-less. Allocation of resources helps to ensure that more of the right
people receive the right goods and services at the right time and place. Most nonprofit companies
in health care compete quite fiercely against companies that are structured on a for-profit basis.
Fourth, good pharmacist is one who is a “clinical purist.” A false pretense that the complexities
of modern drug therapy do not allow time for concern with other matters. On the contrary, a lack
of knowledge on how to manage resources and a lack of understanding on how to work within
the current system of health care delivery will only impede the pharmacist’s goal to provide MTM
services. Pharmacists who “don’t want to be bothered with management” face the same logistical
constraints, such as formularies, generic substitution, prior authorizations, limited networks,
employee conflict and lack of productivity, breakdowns in computer hardware and software,
budgetary limitations, and changes in policy that all other pharmacists face. The problem with
the “don’t want to be bothered with management” pharmacists is that they will be less likely to
operate efficiently within the system, becoming frustrated and ultimately less clinically effective
than the pharmacists who accept these challenges as part of their practice. A pharmacist does
not ascend to an administrative position, he or she inherently “manages” a practice the instant
he or she takes a position as a pharmacist. Staff pharmacists in every practice setting manage
technicians and clerks every hour of every day. They also manage the flow of work through their
sites and the use of medications by patients. Pharmacists’ ability to manage their work
environment can have a significant impact on their ability to cope with the daily stressors of
practice, increasing job satisfaction, and diminishing the likelihood of career burnout or
impairment through the abuse of alcohol and drugs.
4. What evidence exists that a business perspective is critical to providing effective pharmacy
services to patients?
5. What are the managerial sciences, and how can pharmacy practitioners use them effectively?
- Managerial sciences is a broad study that helps business to achieve certain goals using
various scientific methods. They’re reason why it is referred to as sciences is because their
proper application stems from the scientific process of inquiry, much the same as with other
pharmaceutical sciences. More formal examination of the managerial sciences should put into
perspective their use as tools to implement pharmacy services effectively. The science of
accounting keeping track of the business’s transactions, such as sales revenues, wages paid to
employees, prescription product purchases from suppliers, rent, and utility bills. This must be
done to ensure that the company is meeting its debts and achieving its financial goals, and more
managerial sciences. But among these other managerial sciences, pharmacy practitioners use
used Operations Management which involves establishing policy delineating the activities of
each employee on a day-to-day basis, what tools they will use to accomplish their tasks, and
where those tasks will be performed. It also entails maintaining the proper inventory of
prescription and nonprescription products so that, on the one hand, the pharmacy is not
consistently running out of drug products that patients need and, on the other hand, there are
not excess amounts of products reaching their expiration date prior to sale or otherwise taking
up valuable space that could be used for other purposes.