The Role of Pharmacy in Modern Healthcare
Pharmacy is a profession that bridges the healthcare sciences with chemistry to ensure safe and effective use of medications. It encompasses traditional roles like compounding and dispensing medications on doctors’ orders, along with other activities like providing drug information and conducting medication reviews.
Pharmacists are a crucial part of the healthcare system and have an important role in enhancing overall patient outcomes. To this end, it is vital to understand how different parts of the practice can interact and overlap in order to identify ways to improve patient care and enhance health outcomes.
Medications are essential for treating illness and disease, but they can also have side effects that are unpleasant or even dangerous. To minimize these risks, pharmacists are responsible for ensuring that patients take their prescriptions properly and are aware of possible interactions with other medications or vitamins, supplements, foods or dietary items. They can also advise on safer and more effective treatment alternatives, including non-drug treatments and self-care measures (e.g. exercise).
Medication errors are a serious concern and are an important area of pharmacist expertise, as they work to prevent them. This includes verifying the correct medications, doses and frequency prescribed by a doctor and checking that a new prescription does not interact with other drugs a patient is taking. In addition, pharmacists are responsible for advising on how best to take medications to achieve optimal results, both in terms of dosage and duration.
Pharmacy can also play a key role in public health, supporting initiatives to increase awareness of a particular medication, or the need for a certain vaccination. It can also help develop policies regarding the types of medication, treatments or products that are best suited to a specific population, and keeping up-to-date with advances in new medications, digital health devices and other innovations in the healthcare industry.
While the scope of a pharmacist’s activities has diminished since the emergence of modern pharmaceutical science, many of these traditions remain. This is reflected in the debates surrounding whether or not pharmacists should be separated from physicians and be allowed to independently carry out their own clinical services (e.g. compounding, prescribing, and dispensing medications). Both camps make claims that their view leads to fewer conflicts of interest in the healthcare industry, better patient care, and reduced costs, but evidence is mixed.
The aim of this article is to expose issues relating to the definition of pharmacy, and to create dialogue on how to address these problems. The model presented here is not perfect, but it provides a basis for discussion that may lead to increased clarity and consistency in and across the pharmacy sector locally and internationally. In the context of education and policy-making, this would allow a more uniform approach to how the various dimensions of pharmacy are defined, and could ultimately result in a clearer understanding of the impact that each dimension can have on patient outcomes. This, in turn, can inform the development of educational curricula and policy interventions that are more consistent with the realities of the profession.
Pharmacy is a profession that bridges the healthcare sciences with chemistry to ensure safe and effective use of medications. It encompasses traditional roles like compounding and dispensing medications on doctors’ orders, along with other activities like providing drug information and conducting medication reviews. Pharmacists are a crucial part of the healthcare system and have an important role in enhancing overall patient outcomes. To this end, it is vital to understand how different parts of the practice can interact and overlap in order to identify ways to improve patient care and enhance health outcomes. Medications are essential for treating illness and disease, but they can also have side effects that are unpleasant or even dangerous. To minimize these risks, pharmacists are responsible for ensuring that patients take their prescriptions properly and are aware of possible interactions with other medications or vitamins, supplements, foods or dietary items. They can also advise on safer and more effective treatment alternatives, including non-drug treatments and self-care measures (e.g. exercise). Medication errors are a serious concern and are an important area of pharmacist expertise, as they work to prevent them. This includes verifying the correct medications, doses and frequency prescribed by a doctor and checking that a new prescription does not interact with other drugs a patient is taking. In addition, pharmacists are responsible for advising on how best to take medications to achieve optimal results, both in terms of dosage and duration. Pharmacy can also play a key role in public health, supporting initiatives to increase awareness of a particular medication, or the need for a certain vaccination. It can also help develop policies regarding the types of medication, treatments or products that are best suited to a specific population, and keeping up-to-date with advances in new medications, digital health devices and other innovations in the healthcare industry. While the scope of a pharmacist’s activities has diminished since the emergence of modern pharmaceutical science, many of these traditions remain. This is reflected in the debates surrounding whether or not pharmacists should be separated from physicians and be allowed to independently carry out their own clinical services (e.g. compounding, prescribing, and dispensing medications). Both camps make claims that their view leads to fewer conflicts of interest in the healthcare industry, better patient care, and reduced costs, but evidence is mixed. The aim of this article is to expose issues relating to the definition of pharmacy, and to create dialogue on how to address these problems. The model presented here is not perfect, but it provides a basis for discussion that may lead to increased clarity and consistency in and across the pharmacy sector locally and internationally. In the context of education and policy-making, this would allow a more uniform approach to how the various dimensions of pharmacy are defined, and could ultimately result in a clearer understanding of the impact that each dimension can have on patient outcomes. This, in turn, can inform the development of educational curricula and policy interventions that are more consistent with the realities of the profession.