International Journal of Coronaviruses

International Journal of Coronaviruses

Current Issue Volume No: 1 Issue No: 1

Review-article Article Open Access
  • Available online freely Peer Reviewed
  • Tele-Pharmacists’ Prospects In Pandemic Situations: A Bangladesh Scenario

    1 Secretary and Treasurer, Dr. M. Nasirullah Memorial Trust, Tejgaon, Dhaka 1215, Bangladesh 

    Abstract

    Telemedicine and telehealth technologies are especially effective during epidemic outbreaks, when health authorities recommend implementing social distance systems. Currently, coronavirus COVID-19 has affected 210 countries around the world, killed more than 200,000 and infected more than 3 million, according to worldometer, April 26, 2020. Home-care is especially important in these situations because hospitals are not seemingly safe during pandemic outbreaks. Also, the chance to get out of the home during the lockdown period is limited. Telephone-based measures improve efficiency by linking appropriate information and feedback. It can also help provide education at distance on various health issues and topics. In addition to increasing access to healthcare, telemedicine is a fruitful and proactive way to provide a variety of benefits to patients seeking healthcare; diagnose and monitor critical and chronic health conditions; improve healthcare quality and reduce costs. The article reveals scope of pharmacy professionals in telemedicine sector during epidemic outbreaks.

     

    Author Contributions
    Received May 02, 2020     Accepted May 06, 2020     Published May 11, 2020

    Copyright© 2020 Kader Mohiuddin Abdul.
    License
    Creative Commons License   This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

    Competing interests

    The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

    Funding Interests:

    Citation:

    Kader Mohiuddin Abdul (2020) Tele-Pharmacists’ Prospects In Pandemic Situations: A Bangladesh Scenario International Journal of Coronaviruses. - 1(1):19-30
    DOI 10.14302/issn.2692-1537.ijcv-20-3355

    Introduction

    Introduction

    Bangladesh's health care services are becoming unusually concentrated in a small fraction of costly critical health-demanding patients. A large part of these complex-patients suffers from multiple chronic diseases and are spending a lot of money. Tele-pharmacy includes patient counselling, medication review and prescription review by a qualified pharmacist for the patients who are located at a far distance from the pharmacy. The most common way to use telemedicine is a responsive model, primarily physician-led with virtual visits stimulated by alerts using interactive services, which facilitates real-time interaction between the patient and provider 1. It delivers resilience to services and enables pharmacists to work remotely, reducing the need for long journeys and increasing job satisfaction 2. The rise of pharmacists in epidemic situations has become increasingly popular in developed countries such as the United States, Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom. Along with doctors, pharmacists can serve as frontline healthcare workers during epidemics. The profession is developed and highly praised in both developed and underdeveloped countries. Millions of professional pharmacists worldwide work in various organizations, and according to data from the International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP), nearly 75% of them work in patient care 3. Even in the United States, the continued lacking of primary health providers and medical specialists has made it possible for pharmacists to care for ambulatory patients with chronic diseases in a variety of treatment services 4. This study contributes to the existing literature by describing a telemedicine implementation for pandemic pharmacy services, which are currently nonexistent in Bangladesh.

    Affiliations:
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