A couple of local pharmacists are touting the role that pharmacists play in ensuring that people live healthy lives, as part of Pharmacy Awareness Month.
Dawn Marie Sloan-Beahm at Henders Drugs and Brad Cooper at Pharmasave in Estevan say that pharmacists are more than just individuals who dispense medication.
Sloan-Beahm has been a pharmacist for more than 30 years. She says this is a fairly exciting time for people in the industry, as they’re finally able to put to use the training and expertise that they possess.
“Traditionally pharmacists’ skills have been highly underutilized, so now we have the ability to deliver vaccinations,” said Sloan-Beahm. “We provide medication management services, and we also prescribe for several minor ailments and conditions, and that list is gradually expanding as well.”
When pharmacists are using their full scope of training, they have improved access of care for patients, because pharmacists are easier to access in a quick fashion. People don’t need an appointment to see a pharmacist.
That reduces pressure on the health-care system as a result, and there is less expense to the health-care system.
“It’s a long list of benefits to having pharmacists involved in your care earlier rather than later,” she said.
Pharmacists have only been able to administer vaccines in the last couple of years, and the types of vaccines they’re able to deliver has been expanding. They started off with just simple flu shots, and it has grown to travel vaccines, pneumonia shots and more.
Sloan-Beahm said the profession is ever evolving, and it’s exciting to do more with their training.
“It’s always been more than counting the pills. It’s always been about safety first, making sure the medication is safe for the patient and the most appropriate thing to treat the condition,” said Sloan-Beahm.
Pharmacists can now prescribe for up to 27 different minor ailment conditions, including urinary tract infections for women, shingles, minor eye infections, smoking cessation products and more.
“There are a lot of things that you used to have to see the doctor for that now you can come and talk to your pharmacist first to see if it’s something we can help you with,” she said.
Cooper agreed that the role of the pharmacist has gone through an evolution over the years, taking it beyond the dispensing of medications.
“We’ve moved more from just the physical provision of the product, to more of the overall management and medication use of the patient,” said Cooper.
Not only do they want to make sure the right pills are in the bottle, but they want to ensure the prescriptions handed out are the right ones, and that they’re being used safely.
“We’re accessing new tools in our field. We’re using lab work. We’ve been granted prescriptive authority by our licensing body to treat some minor ailments on our own. So the practice of pharmacy has definitely been evolving over the past few decades, to the point now where pharmacists spend very little of their time in the actual production of a prescription.”
Tasks such as counting and pouring medication are not being done as much by pharmacists any longer. Now Cooper said they’re being handled by auxiliary staff in pharmacies.
It gives pharmacists time to handle such duties as medication reviews, checking over medication profiles to determine whether people are adhering to medication regiments, and spending more time communicating with patients about potential side effects or answering questions.
And they have time for minor ailment prescriptions.
“We find that we are carving out quite an important part of the healthcare team side of people’s physicians,” said Cooper.
And there is always a need for prescriptions, he said. While the industry is not recession-proof, they have done all right in the current economic environment. The demand for medications and other services Pharmasave provides are pretty stable.
As the country continues to see an aging population, thanks to the baby boomer generation, it means there will be an increase in prescription volumes.
