Amongst the many challenges and stresses that arose from the pandemic, it’s safe to say that certain changes in consumer behaviour has evolved in a way that has arguably benefited the delivery of services in pharmacy.
The widespread adoption of telehealth has been a big factor across the healthcare industry to ensure that patients can still access medical and medications advice, particularly supporting those who cannot leave home due to isolation, travel or other comorbidities.
Between March 2020 & July 2022, there were over 118 million telehealth services delivered to 18 million patients across Australia¹ – that’s approximately 70% of the population! Not to mention within that, 72% experienced a form of telehealth for the first time.²
But as this trend accelerated due to COVID-19, it’s important to note that consumers’ desire for digital solutions has also evolved long before the inception of the pandemic and this isn’t likely to slow down. Recent studies show that 57% of Australians expect that more of their interactions will be online or virtual than before the pandemic³ and 41 to 46% of pharmacies already support some form of click & collect or phone app service such as Scrypt, Medmate and Medadvisor.⁴ Which is great as an eCommerce solution, but what technology or programs are available for pharmacies to provide medication management services and advice to patients outside the four walls of a pharmacy?
Pharmacy in particular should not be left behind in the telehealth evolution and there have been some great examples recently of how community pharmacies have been able to continue services such as MedsChecks and Home Medicine Reviews (HMR) even during the height of mandatory isolation requirements.
From a community pharmacy perspective it is important for businesses to determine how they are positioned to flexibly deliver these types of services. This includes reviewing whether or not they are meeting their service KPI’s and providing value when doing so.
Upon review, it’s important for pharmacy owners to consider the resources who are assigned to this and, is this providing the business valuable return on investment or should it be outsourced by locum pharmacists or clinical telehealth service providers?
The latter is an interesting concept, as companies such as Scrypt have seen a huge surge in demand for the remote provision of services such as medication reviews and patient medicines advice over the past 12 months in particular. Which has also had genuinely positive consequences on the pharmacy workforce giving the ability to employ pharmacists who might be stay at home parents, working remotely or furthering their studies.
Community pharmacies in particular should not be frightened by the prospect of telehealth, provided they are keeping up with consumer expectations themselves to deliver core professional services in a flexible manner. The opportunity here is to also attract new customers to their businesses as a result of a potentially positive virtual experience who are later more inclined to shop instore or interact virtually with pharmacies who they created an existing relationship with already. Having these retention methods in place as well as technology that supports communication and targeted engagement here is vital to ensuring those customers are nurtured and have the best access to your pharmacists advice.
Disclaimer: At the time of print, temporary arrangements to provide Medication management services via telehealth were still in place for community pharmacies but under review by the Department of Health and Aged Care. Further updates relating to this will be provided in the next issue of Retail Pharmacy magazine.
¹https://www.digitalhealth.gov.au/initiatives-and-programs/telehealth
²https://www.ey.com/en_us/life-sciences/why-e-commerce-may-be-the-future-of-pharmacies
⁴https://www.commbank.com.au/content/dam/commbank-assets/business/industries/2022-07/CommBankPharmacyInsightsReport2022.pdf
(2023, February). How Digital Solutions Can Expand and Flourish. Retail Pharmacy – Page 30