Navigating the Evolving Landscape: What it Means for You

In recent years, pharmacists have been under growing pressure. An increase in demand for their services has clashed with stagnant reimbursement rates, creating a critical staffing bottleneck that has threatened to slow down patient care. As a result, pharmacists are experiencing burnout more than ever. However, there’s a silver lining to the current pharmacy landscape. Strides in innovation and technology offer pharmacists new tools to navigate this challenging environment.

“This can all seem a little bleak, but at the same time we have a variety of industry opportunities in that we have huge and amazing technological advancements that we can take advantage of,” said Pacience Edwards, PharmD, compliance manager at Outcomes at the April 2024 Total Pharmacy Solutions Summit. “We’re also seeing the industry move more towards a patient-centric model, which can be hugely beneficial not only for our patients, but also for our pharmacies.”

One such technological innovation has been telehealth, which surged in use during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The emergence of telehealth increased the comfortability of patients to receive services in a virtual manner, and has since given way to telepharmacy, defined by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy as ‘the provision of pharmaceutical care through the use of telecommunications and information technologies to patients at a distance.’

In pharmacies that implement telepharmaceutical practices, clear benefits have been observed. When it comes to patients, the digital workflows can improve accessibility by removing geographical barriers to care.

“What we’ve seen is there’s a continual increase in the need for improved access,” said Edwards. “There’s a large number of patients that are classified as medically underserved and have to go out of their way to receive medical care, and these patients can really benefit from the implementation of telepharmacy to help meet them where they’re at, eliminate that burden to care so that they can receive services in an easier manner, and make it fit better in their life.”

What’s more, telepharmacy can enhance workflow efficiency and free up pharmacists’ time by delegating tasks like prescription processing to other staff. By granting pharmacists more time to focus on patients, telepharmacy can help the health care providers practice at the top of their license.

“It’s projected that there will be a shortage of up to 124,000 physicians by 2034,” said Edwards. “That’s a huge concern to the health care industry as a whole. As pharmacists—being the most easily accessible health care provider as well as having that strong clinical background—we can really step in and help fill that void.”