It’s really exciting that patients know that pharmacists provide more healthcare services than ever before.
During the fight against COVID-19, our frontline health workers have been critical to keeping the pandemic under control as much as possible. Pharmacists around the world have continued to provide direct patient care and perform frontline duties for their communities during this pandemic, but are often relegated to the background and overlooked when frontline workers are heralded. Community pharmacists are the most accessible healthcare practitioners, which is further proven during the pandemic as they continued to provide direct patient care despite restrictions imposed by the government due to the pandemic. Due to the inaccessibility of other healthcare practitioners during this time, community pharmacists have reduced the burden on the healthcare system by diverting the influx of patients away from hospitals through triaging and screening patients.
Community pharmacists have played various roles in supporting the healthcare system during COVID-19: delivering medications to patients, educating patients on telehealth services, assessing patients for renewal of chronic medications, performing consultations on minor ailments, clarifying misconceptions about COVID-19 treatments, and contributing to COVID-19 screening. Alongside ICU nurses, physicians, and respiratory therapists, hospital pharmacists have been part of the COVID-19 efforts and their roles include management of drug shortages, development of treatment protocols, participation of patient rounds, interpretation of lab results for COVID-19, participant recruitment for clinical trials, exploration of new drugs, medication management advice, and antimicrobial stewardship. Further support from pharmacists will be needed once a vaccine is launched in order to reach population-wide coverage. Amid COVID-19, pharmacists have not stopped working as frontline workers and they should be recognized as such.
(Referenced from Journal of Pharmaceutical Policy and Practice)
https://joppp.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40545-020-00241-3
AssureCare is a privately held healthcare technology company that provides innovative care management solutions to commercial and health and human service providers. AssureCare’s flagship software platform, MedCompass, is used by healthcare providers throughout the United States to deliver end-to-end care management for millions of patients daily. MedCompass transforms healthcare management by automating processes and streamlining workflows, thus allowing care professionals to make better decisions that dramatically improve the quality of care and lower costs. AssureCare is considered an industry leader in developing, modular, seamless solutions designed to improve patient outcomes and reduce avoidable costs associated with population health management. AssureCare is a Vora Group company with headquarters in Cincinnati, OH.
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