Advantages of Telepharmacy

Advantages of Telepharmacy

The digital age has directed a range of innovation with expanded access to a multitude of life-changing advancements in medicine for patients as well as for those who deliver healthcare services. It is hard to find a segment of the healthcare system where things have changed more dramatically than in pharmacy and the technology-driven Telepharmacy sector. As hospitals, health systems, and retail drugstores labor under the stresses of maintaining costs and enhancing health outcomes, can Telepharmacy services provide measurable benefits?

What is Telepharmacy?

Telepharmacy is a method of delivering pharmaceutical products and care using telecommunication to different patients. This way patients can receive their medications and other pharmaceutical care items easily and comfortably. Some of the services given include patient counseling, drug therapy monitoring, refill approval for the prescribed medications, monitoring or formulary compliance depending on videoconferencing or teleconferencing, and prior approval of prescribed drugs. Other services are taking medicines to remote places and also labeling the systems. Telepharmacy services can be provided at retail pharmacies or even through nursing homes, hospitals, and other medical facilities.

The word Telepharmacy can also mean using videoconferencing in the pharmacy world to give other services like training, education, and also management services for the pharmacists.

Telepharmacy Benefits:

• Access to healthcare services:

The greatest advantage of telepharmacy is the effortless access to healthcare services in remote and rural locations. Regular access to prescription medication and access to pharmacists are recognized as essential elements of the delivery of patient-centered healthcare in remote and rural communities. Pharmacists can provide high-level pharmaceutical care services in remote areas that have lost or are losing access to healthcare services.

• Patient Satisfaction

Pharmaceutical access and information in rural areas through Telehealth leads to patient satisfaction. One of the challenges in clinics used to be that elderly patients were missing their appointments because they couldn't get out of their homes or didn't find a companion to join them. This remote technology has helped pharmacists to examine patients’ medications without them having to travel. This has increased patient trust and satisfaction with the service.

• Effective Patient Consulting

Telepharmacy provides greater satisfaction for patients concerning the pharmacist counseling and the time required to obtain medication. Pharmacists advise using webcam-enabled Telepharmacy services. Telehealth consulting also gives patients the chance to get a second opinion on their prescriptions or learn about the medication's cautions and usage.

• Minimal Scarcity of Pharmacists

Several hospitals, clinics, and medical centers in rural areas are facing a lack of local pharmacy services where medications are supplied without the involvement of a pharmacist. In situations where pharmacists are not available in rural and remote areas, the majority of pharmacy services are turned toward nurses, doctors, and other healthcare providers who may not have been trained in the areas of proper medication management. This technique has potentially created a system that is not ideal and that does not meet the government policies around the requirement of quality pharmaceutical services to all citizens. Telepharmacy has the potential to handle these issues. The pharmacy work has an impending role to be actively concerned in the practices of telepharmacy. A remote telepharmacy service is a possible option to cover these shifts of the pharmacy profession to other professions. Hence, telepharmacy addresses pharmacist shortages in rural areas and enhances patient access to pharmaceutical services.

Clinical Benefits

When clinics provide this one-stop comfort for patients, it makes patients happy and loyal. There’s a reason we all keep coming back to our favorite restaurant time after time, probably because it's fast, familiar, and easy. That’s a winning formula for making customers happy and keeping them around for a long time.

When doctors are able to ensure patients are filling their medications and are familiar with their regimens, it will lead to more profitable outcomes, which is great for the clinic. For those clinics with value-based compensation rates, ensuring optimal clinical practices is also important to the bottom line.

Lastly, by bridging the clinic-pharmacy gap, clinics enhance their overall teamwork across the patient care unit, which satisfies all parties involved, including the physicians. When physicians are able to have regular discussions with pharmacists and have access to patient medication compliance information, it makes them more informed on their patients’ medication habits so they can provide better education and care. When adherence issues or educational mishaps arise and are discussed across the patient care team, it makes everyone more prepared to handle such cases in the future.

Conclusion

Rural citizens and residents lack easy access to healthcare services often due to geographical and demographical characteristics. Telepharmacy holds substantial promise as a technology to improve access to pharmaceutical care for people living in rural and remote societies. Telepharmacy is quickly becoming an essential part of modern pharmacy practice that has the possibility to provide quality pharmaceutical services, such as medication management, distribution, patient counseling, and drug information. Inherent to the adoption of these practices are legal challenges and pitfalls that need to be handled. A well-developed system, however, can change the practices of pharmacy which is beneficial to both the rural communities and the hospital or retail pharmacies that deliver these services.

Nano Health’s Telepharmacy Services

NANO Health’s Telepharmacist delivers the abilities and expertise of a qualified pharmacist and gives patients more instantaneous access to prescribed drugs and medication-counseling services.

Essentially, our telepharmacist leverages technology to provide one pharmacist to give guidance and review prescriptions at various locations. Patients pick up medications from a nearby authorized site staffed by pharmacists and have access to the same counseling with a pharmacist at the remote location as they would at the home pharmacy, arranged via our Dawaa24 application rather than in person.