Tuesday, February 16, 2010

5% of Healthcare Professionals in Malaysia use Telepharmacy

A group of pharmacists at the Universiti Sains Malaysia School of Pharmaceutical Sciences have published a study in this month's issue of the Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Research entitled "Evaluation Of Knowledge And Perception of Malaysian Health Professionals About Telemedicine" (PDF):
Telemedicine use in Malaysia 2010
The study doesn't state specifically how each respondent answered the questions, but it's a good bet that this reflects telepharmacy use in hospital pharmacy settings, because 1) 80% of respondents were from hospitals (private and government-run), and 2) "Nurses or medical doctors in clinic settings were excluded since telemedicine is yet to become a common practice in these settings," though telemedicine is defined as Teleradiology, Telesurgery, Telenursing as well as Telepharmacy. While 5% usage is low, this is the first I've heard of telepharmacy in use in Malaysia, whereas 42% of my fellow medical professionals in Malaysia have heard of it before, and as a developing country the only direction telepharmacy practice is headed there is up.

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