North Dakota Telepharmacy Project Continues to Expand

Candie Helseth wrote an article in Prairie Business Magazine about Kathy Nelson, a North Dakota pharmacy owner who remotely supervises technicians dispensing medications in a retail setting. The NDTP's stats were highlighted a bit as well:

The use of telepharmacy technology is growing in North Dakota, which in 2001 became the first state to approve legislation allowing retail pharmacies to operate in remote areas without requiring a pharmacist to be physically present.

In the decade preceding the creation of the North Dakota Telepharmacy Project, the state had lost 26 pharmacies. As a result of the state’s telepharmacy project, 40,000 rural residents in North Dakota have had pharmacy services restored, retained or established, according to Ann Rathke, the coordinator of the state’s telepharmacy project.