Introduction to Pharmacy Practice 1

Pharmacy Practice
ƒ Runs for all 6 trimesters
ƒ Covers broad practice proficiencies
ƒ Dispensing and compounding
ƒ Law and Ethics and professionalism
ƒ Communication
ƒ Drug information
ƒ Minor illness diagnosis and treatment
ƒ Professional roles
ƒ Healthcare system
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School of Biomedical Sciences
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Pharmacy Practice 1
ƒ 5 hours per week
ƒ Lectures
ƒ Tutorials
ƒ Placements
ƒ Extemporaneous Dispensing Pracs
ƒ Course objectives
ƒ Understand and explain the role of pharmacy practice in health care
delivery;
ƒ Perform pharmaceutical calculations correctly;
ƒ Describe the concepts of dosage form design and their preparation;
ƒ Develop competency in the extemporaneous pharmaceutical products and
dispensing;
ƒ Describe the role of the pharmacists in rural and remote health care within
the Australian context; and
ƒ Understand and describe the principles of the National Medicines Policy.
ƒ Describe the distribution of pharmaceuticals within Australia

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School of Biomedical Sciences
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Pharmacy Practice 1
ƒ Course content
ƒ The history of pharmacy
ƒ The Australian healthcare system, including rural, remote
and Indigenous Health care
ƒ The National Medicines Policy and professional standards
ƒ Drug distribution in Australia
ƒ Drug manufacture including the concepts of quality control
and standards
ƒ Pharmaceutical products and the routes of administration
ƒ Rights and responsibilities of pharmacists
ƒ Pharmaceutical calculations and extemporaneous
dispensing techniques

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Required texts
ƒ Australian Pharmaceutical Formulary and Handbook,
20th Ed. Sansom L (ed). Canberra, Pharmaceutical
Society of Australia 2006.
ƒ Pharmaceutical Calculations Ansel, HC, Stoklosa,
MJ, Lippincott, Williams and Wilkins 2006
ƒ Ansel's Pharmaceutical Dosage Forms and Drug
Delivery Systems Loyd VA, Popovich NG, Ansel HC
Lippincott, Williams and Wilkins 2006
ƒ Australian Medicines Handbook

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Pharmacy Practice 1
ƒ Dispensing practicals
ƒ LS2-25/29
Introduction to basic techniques

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School of Biomedical Sciences
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Assessment
ƒ End of trimester exam (30%)
ƒ Dispensing practicals (30%)
ƒ See course outline
ƒ Assignment (10%)
ƒ 500 word written assignment (10%)
ƒ Calculation tests (30%)
ƒ 3 tests
ƒ Must achieve at least 80%
ƒ Must pass all components

30 January 2008 Discipline of Pharmacy and Experimental Pharmacology

School of Biomedical Sciences
Introduction to the roles and
responsibilities of pharmacists
 9

Learning goals
ƒ Understand the responsibilities of
pharmacists
ƒ Gain insight into the different practice
environments that pharmacists may
work in
ƒ Understand some of challenges
ƒ Understand the role of different
organisations that represent the
profession
30 January 2008 Discipline of Pharmacy and Experimental Pharmacology
School of Biomedical Sciences
Drug discovery Drug use

Health outcome

Prescribing Dispensing Drug use

Self-medication
 11

Exercise
ƒ Write down everything you know/think a
pharmacist does/is
ƒ Where do they practice?
ƒ What do they do?
ƒ Try and be specific (i.e. not just “dispenses
drugs”), breakdown the activities if you can

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What is pharmacy?
ƒ “the art, practice, or profession of
preparing, preserving, compounding,
and dispensing medical drugs”1

ƒ Fits the 1946 model

ƒ Product-oriented
ƒ Shift to patient-oriented
1. Merriam-Webster Dictionary
30 January 2008 Discipline of Pharmacy and Experimental Pharmacology
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 National competencies for 13

pharmacists1
ƒ Endorsed by all professional bodies
ƒ Skill-based
ƒ Eight functional areas:
ƒ Practise pharmacy in a professional and ethical manner
ƒ Manage work issues and interpersonal relationships
ƒ Promote and contribute to optimal use of medicines
ƒ Dispense medicines
ƒ Prepare pharmaceutical products
ƒ Provide primary health care
ƒ Provide medicines and health information and education
ƒ Apply organisational skills in the practise of pharmacy

1. Pharmaceutical Society of Australia. Competency Standards for Pharmacists

in Australia 2003
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A Pharmacist
ƒ The pharmacist provides caring services.

ƒ Dispensing
ƒ Compounding
ƒ Drug information
ƒ Primary healthcare
ƒ Pharmacotherapeutics
ƒ Ethics and law
ƒ Communication

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A Pharmacist
ƒ the appropriate, efficacious and cost
effective use of resources.

ƒ Pharmaceutics
ƒ Critical appraisal skills
ƒ Pharmacotherapeutics
ƒ Pharmacoeconomics

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A Pharmacist
ƒ the pharmacist is in an ideal position
between physician and patient.

ƒ Critical appraisal skills

ƒ Drug Information skills
ƒ Communication skills

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A Pharmacist
ƒ the pharmacist must effectively manage
resources (human, physical and fiscal)
and information.

ƒ Pharmacy management
ƒ Drug information skills

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A Pharmacist
ƒ Life-long learning
ƒ Pharmacists should learn how to learn

ƒ Critical appraisal skills

30 January 2008 Discipline of Pharmacy and Experimental Pharmacology

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Pharmacy in Australia
 20

Pharmacy in Australia
ƒ AIHW Workforce survey (1999)1
ƒ 14,747 pharmacists
ƒ 46.9% Female
ƒ 29.4% Medicine
ƒ >90% Nursing
ƒ Average age 46.1
ƒ 45.1 in 1994
ƒ Average 37.8 hours/week
ƒ Medicine 46.9 hrs/week
ƒ Nursing 30 hrs/week
1. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Pharmacy Labour Force to 2001.
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Major areas of practice

1%
%
tor
4%

r 1
uca
2%
ic 1

ato
r/ed
istr
clin

2%
rial

che
min
tal/

ust

er
Tea
spi

Ad
Ind

Oth
Ho

Community 80%

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Community Pharmacy
ƒ 11,829 community pharmacists
ƒ 42% Female
ƒ 4,926 approved pharmacies
ƒ Constant for nearly 10 years
ƒ Control by the Government
ƒ 69% in small, non-mall shopping
centres
ƒ Work longer hours than hospital (38.2
hpw c.f. 36.0 hpw)
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Pharmacy labour force

90 86.7
81.1
80
Number per 100,000

71 68
70
60
population

52.6
50
40 38.4
30.6
30
20
10
0 Capital Other MA Large Rural Small Rural Other Rural Remote Other Remote
Remote

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Distribution
ƒ Pharmacists are more evenly distributed than
doctors, but less evenly distributed than
nurses
ƒ Community pharmacists tended to be
concentrated in large rural centres and capital
centres
ƒ Remote centres had a higher rate of hospital
pharmacists (6.9) c.f. other remote (4.2) and
other rural (2.9)

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School of Biomedical Sciences
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Average age
50 49.6
49
48 47.9 47.8
47.3
Age (years)

46
45
44
42.8
42

40

38 Capital Other MA Large Rural Small Rural Other Rural Remote Other Remote
Remote

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Age
ƒ Higher proportion of pharmacists aged under
30 in capital cities and remote centres (15%
and 20% respectively)
ƒ Higher proportion of pharmacists aged 65 or
over in OMA and other rural areas (11.3%
and 11.4%)
ƒ Other remote areas – very small proportion of
pharmacists aged under 30 years (4.2%)
compared to national (13.5%)

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Ownership
ƒ Community pharmacists in remote areas are
far more likely to own a pharmacy in remote
areas c.f. metropolitan areas
ƒ Sole proprietors – 54.4% in other remote areas,
43.4% in remote areas c.f. 20.9% in large rural
centres and 25.6% nationally
ƒ 13.4% work as permanent assistants or as
relievers in other remote areas c.f. 32.3% in
capital cities (Pharmacist-in-Charge)

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Community Pharmacy
ƒ Prepare and dispense medicines
ƒ Provide counselling and advice about the use
of medicines
ƒ Undertake minor diagnoses and referral if
appropriate
ƒ Offer advice on self-treatment choices
ƒ Medication provision to long-term care
facilities - medication management
ƒ Home medication reviews
ƒ Medication Assistance Service – PSA
ƒ Disease state management
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School of Biomedical Sciences
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Hospital Pharmacy
ƒ 2,093 hospital pharmacists
ƒ 70% Female
ƒ 279 Hospitals with pharmacy services1
ƒ Hierarchical structure
ƒ Chief/Director
ƒ Deputy Chief/Directors
ƒ Senior Pharmacist
ƒ Specialist Pharmacists
ƒ Pharmacists
1. Society of Hospital Pharmacists of Australia. Final Report: A Demand Model
for Hospital Pharmacists. December 2001.
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 Hospital Pharmacist 30

ƒ Drug Distribution Services

ƒ Acquisition and materials management
ƒ Sterile and non sterile production
ƒ Quality control
ƒ Imprest systems
ƒ Dispensing
ƒ Clinical trials
ƒ Clinical Services
ƒ Drug therapy monitoring
ƒ Patient profiling
ƒ Patient counselling
ƒ Therapeutic information
ƒ Drug information
ƒ Training and education
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School of Biomedical Sciences
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Other roles
ƒ Pharmaceutical Industry
ƒ Government
ƒ State Department of Health
ƒ Federal : PBS
ƒ Non-Government
ƒ National Prescribing Service
ƒ Facilitators
ƒ Organisation
ƒ Academia
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Challenges
ƒ Blurring of professional boundaries
ƒ Nurse prescribing
ƒ Doctor dispensing

ƒ Balancing activities
ƒ Dispensing vs cognitive services
ƒ Remuneration for other services

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Challenges
ƒ Deregulation
ƒ Woolworths et al.
ƒ Protection from competition
ƒ Demonstrate we are worthy
ƒ Continuing to act professionally
ƒ Providing the highest standard of practice

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Key points
ƒ Complex range of roles and responsibilities in
different practice settings
ƒ Shift from product- to patient-focussed
ƒ Activities related to identifying, resolving, and
preventing medication problems
ƒ Continue to improve and expand these roles
in a professional manner

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Readings
ƒ Currie JD. The case for pharmaceutical care. In: Rovers JP,
Currie JD, Hagel HP, et al. Eds. A Practical Guide to
Pharmaceutical Care, 2nd Ed. Washington: American
Pharmaceutical Association;2003.

ƒ Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Pharmacy Labour

Force to 2001. Available at:
http://www.aihw.gov.au/publications/hwl/plf01/plf01.pdf

ƒ Reference:
ƒ Pharmaceutical Society of Australia. Competency Standards for
Pharmacists in Australia 2003. Available at:
http://www.psa.org.au/media/CompStds2003final.pdf

30 January 2008 Discipline of Pharmacy and Experimental Pharmacology

School of Biomedical Sciences