PHARMACISTS can no longer sit back and wait for changes in the health service to be thrust upon them, Commonwealth Department of Health Special Advisor and pharmacist, Emeritus Professor, Lloyd Sansom AO, believes.
Addressing a webinar reflecting on the role of pharmacy in 2020, Sansom said the shift toward e-health seen as a result of the COVID-19 was unlikely to change - a point highlighted by today's announced by Federal Health Minister, Greg Hunt, that telehealth services will be a permanent part of the Medicare system.
Samson noted that "something like 70% of all medical consultations are being conducted by e-health", while the advent of electronic prescriptions and home delivery services have changed how patients access healthcare and medicines.
"That dynamic is not going to change," he said.
"We are going to see the acceleration of e-health and that's quite interesting, because what we're seeing in telehealth is the depersonalisation to some extent [of healthcare].
"So the role of the pharmacist - that way of being really accessible - is going to change enormously.
"The requirement of that person to be a partner within a broader structure is going to be even more critical.
"There's a whole dynamic [shift that's going to happen] not within the next decade, but within the next six to 12 months.
"So what I want to see is some leadership... to say, 'this is our direction, this is what we predict the future will be, this is how we can interact within it'.
"We've got to build interprofessional bridges, and getting pharmacists into general practice for example is going to be critical - not to takeover the role of the community pharmacist, but to engage more actively with the community pharmacist, bringing community pharmacy into the loop in a way.
"It's those types of status quo issues that 2020, COVID, the bushfires and everything else has really brought into focus.
"We can no longer sit and wait for the future to be dictated to us, we've got to make that future."
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