October 10, 2014

Royal Pharmaceutical Society Faculty – my journey so far.

I’m currently developing my portfolio to submit to the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) Faculty.  For those who don’t know, the RPS Faculty is a professional recognition programme exclusively for RPS members. This recognition allows you to use post-nominals that align to your stage in practice and provides a way of demonstrating your professional experience and expertise to patients, the public, customers/clients and your employer.

The next cycle of Faculty Recognition of Prior Experience Assessments (that’s me!) closes at midnight on Sunday 16 November 2014 so frantically working towards that date. It’s daunting task particularly as my pharmacy career path has been non-standard in nature – community pharmacy; big pharma; technology; thought leadership. It’s also very time-consuming!

If you’ve gone through the Faculty assessment already please share your experience with me about your journey.

I signed up as a Faculty Champion at the RPS Conference last month to help others on their journey and we’re looking for others to join the Faculty Champions programme. Can you help?

To find out more about the Royal Pharmaceutical Society Faculty go to the RPS website at http://ow.ly/CxW28 or call Hannah, Lesley or Jess on 0845 257 2570.

July 5, 2014

A hat-trick of ‘teles’

Earlier this week I wrote a blog about telehealth and the need for fast broadband connection in rural areas such as my beloved Yorkshire Dales to enable the connectivity.

Then over lunch yesterday I listened to an item on the BBC Radio 4 ‘You & Yours’ programme on telecare and plans to bring these services to 3 million people by 2016 and take some of the pressure off of the social care system.

Reading my Pharmaceutical Journal (@PJOnline I like the new design!) over a cup of tea this afternoon I found an article on telepharmacy.

A ‘tele’ hat-trick!

So what is telepharmacy? It’s about innovations that make it easier for individuals to access a pharmacist and pharmacy services at a distance. This may take several forms including

  • supervising drug dispensing remotely where the technician or even robots dispenses the prescription and the process is recorded by webcams as is patient counselling. This has tremendous potential for rural  areas where one pharmacist could cover multiple remote communities without having to travel long distances or worrying about not letting down patients during bad weather.
  • providing medication advice to patients or conducting medicine user reviews. Granted pharmacist have always been available on the end of the phone for advice but face-to-face interactions provide a consultation which is as close to that in the pharmacy as possible. Advice on inhaler technique for example is much improved with visual input.
  • monitoring adherence of treatment regimes in real-time and intervening when doses are missed. This could be  through ‘chip in a bottle’  technology or by wearing a connected device to measure vital signs that  would indicate missed dose or that a change in regime may be required

Telepharmacy may feel threatening to some. However the advantages to patients, especially those in remote locations are so enormous that we pharmacists should embrace the technology to provide these innovative and accessible professional services.

July 2, 2014

Antibiotics- what’s all the fuss about?

Fact – no new class of antibiotic for the past quarter of century

Today the UK news was focused around David Cameron’s announcement of a review on antibiotics led by Jim O’Neill, an economist.  This comes on the back of 3 other announcements in the past year, namely

  • the G8 Summit of Science ministers met in London last June to discuss antibiotic resistance in medicine, and how governments can work together to develop new antibiotics and employ them more wisely.
  • the government launched their Antimicrobial Resistance Strategy in September 2013 including 7 specific action areas on which the Royal Pharmaceutical Society provided
  • the Longitude prize of £10 million was awarded last month to finding an innovative way to prevent the rise of antibiotic resistance

So why bring in an economist in to solve a medical problem?

To solve the market failure by …

creating incentives for pharmacos to develop new antibiotics

looking at alternative sources  and types of antimicrobial agents

… to ultimately prevent a global crisis.

 

July 2, 2014

My recently published article on data sharing and analytics in life sciences

I recently had an article published in the European Pharmaceutical Contractor’s summer issue. The Wealth of Information starts from the premise that the convergence of separate health systems (payers, providers, life sciences, etc.) along with greater connectivity, mobility and the advent of social media into healthcare  is leading to an enormous increase in data. Organisations are struggling to work out what to do with it and the question is not only being wrestled by the the IT department but also across the supply chain, into marketing and even into the HR department. There is no doubt that the use of the collective data offers potential benefits across the entire healthcare ecosystem – from selecting the best drug candidates and targeting the right patients for clinical trials in R&D to personalising treatment management and investing in holistic care for the chronically sick.  The article concludes with 5 ways that life sciences organisations  can harness and share that data to create insights, inform actions and drive better outcomes both withing their 4 walls but also across all the entire healthcare ecosystem.

I welcome your thoughts and comments on the article

July 1, 2014 Aside

Connected health & the broadband dilemma

I’ve just returned from buying a new phone – better clarity of sound for all those hours I spend on teleconferences for work. And yes it’s a phone for my land-line. OK the commentator on BBC Radio 4 programme yesterday was telling me that “landlines are not essential” but when you live in the middle of the beautiful, but isolated Yorkshire Dales National Park, then I would beg to differ as the only way I get a mobile signal is via a device that boosts a 3G signal from my broadband. And don’t get me started on the subject of rural broadband! Our current connectivity is pretty dire at times but there  better times lie ahead connectivity wise as we are part of a community initiative FibreGarDen whose aim is to bring super fast broadband to ours and the adjoining dale.

So why is the subject of connectivity important to me – both as a health professional as well as a resident in a rural community?

A few years ago I co-authored a paper called The future of connected health devices. The essence of the point-of-view was that with pressure on the NHS (and other healthcare systems around the globe) how can you encourage individuals to better manage their health.  The technology is available to enable connected personal healthcare systems – mobile and home devices that monitor your body and collect data on your vital signs at a location that is convenient to you.  But to be able to share that data remotely with your healthcare professionals  and even have remote consultations with your GP then fast (or ideally super fast) broadband is a prerequisite.

In the weeks ahead, I plan to share more thoughts on connected health, telemedicine and digital health in this blog and hopefully on our progress to broadband nirvana!

April 6, 2014

Lessons learnt from my recent CPD experience

A couple of months ago I got ‘the call’ from our regulator, the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC), to submit my CPD (continuous professional development) record by the start of March. The GPhC is responsible for ensuring all pharmacy professionals maintain their knowledge and skills and remain up to date with practise.  So what was required – 9 records for each year over a 5 year period, 3 records per year that had to cover the fully CPD cycle – reflection, planning, action & evaluation). My first thought was ‘panic’! Why? Well it definitely wasn’t for the lack of completing my professional training requirements over the years. No, it was because I had my records documented in various formats, places and to various degrees of details. What laid ahead was a concerted effort over a week (vacation!) to move all my records into the official CPD tool.

On March 2nd I breathed a sigh of relief as I pushed the ‘submit’ button and then waited for the verdict! Last week the screen at last changed from ‘review pending’ to ‘view report’. I opened it with trepidation and read ‘Congratulations’ and ‘Reflection- excellent, Planning-excellent, Action-excellent & Evaluation-excellent’. Phew!

So although it’s been a stressful few weeks I’m now organised and have a strong record  in ONE tool to build upon and have already added 3 additional records for this year. Having spoken to a number of other professionals (physios, dentists) over the past few weeks many are in similar positions to I was. This certainly served as a ‘wake-up’ call to be organised with all aspects of my record keeping!