It looks as though the pharmacy profession is on the cusp of entering a new era of health care on a global scale…..

The World Congress of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences was held from October 3-8 in Amsterdam. It was run by the International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP).  The theme was ‘Improving health through responsible medicines use.’ The Pharmaceutical Society of Australia delegates who attended agree that to move forward, pharmacists need to become part of the health-care team, providing services to patients.

But don’t pharmacists dispense medications to customers in pharmacies? Services…. what’s that all about?!?!?!

Globally, there is a new focus on the role of pharmacists as healthcare clinicians. The World Health Organisation estimates that over 50% of medicines are not taken correctly, for three main reasons – they are prescribed or dispensed inappropriately or taken incorrectly by patients. When medicines are not optimally used, patients end up unwell, resulting in excessive health care costs. It is estimated that $US500 billion dollars, yes…. 500 billion dollars…. could be saved globally if medications were used responsibly.

So stay tuned…. pharmacists will most likely be on the health care front line in the future. They might be consulting in a number of different settings to ensure the quality use of medicines by patients. It is promising that the Federal Health Minister Tanya Plibersek attended the recent FIP conference. She will be well aware of the position pharmacists are in to save the Australian health system many millions of dollars. From here it will be a matter of the pharmacy profession lobbying to been as service providing consultants, not purely as dispensers of medications.