Hong Kong Outpatient Remote Pharmacist Conferencing Coming to Retail Stores

A large store chain in Hong Kong called Mannings is getting a remote pharmacist video consultation device for outpatients to consult with a pharmacist at different Mannings stores:

Jardine Matheson Group Managing Director Anthony Nightingale visited three Mannings stores including the recently opened flagship store at the Hang Lung Centre in Causeway Bay, as part of his annual tour of the Group's Hong Kong operations.

During the visit, the Mannings senior team showed Mr Nightingale new initiatives implemented at store level and demonstrated the innovative and first-to-market 'Tele-pharmacy'.

'Tele-Pharmacy' provides shoppers with pharmaceutical advice through a teleconference system link to a pharmacist stationed at another Mannings outlet. This is designed to address the needs of the increasing number of health conscious consumers.

Arizona Outpatient Telepharmacy Program gets Federal Earmark

On US Congresswoman from Arizona Gabrielle Giffords' website, under 'Fiscal Year 2011 Appropriations,' she highlights several earmarks she referred to the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies. One interesting item, referred to Giffords by State Rep Bradley is listed below:

Telepharmacy – Marana Health Center, Inc., 13644 North Sandario Road, Marana, AZ 85653 - $200,000, HHS-HRSA: Funding will be used to establish a telepharmacy in the MHC Primary Care Health Center at the TMC Campus to provide low-cost pharmaceuticals to uninsured and underinsured patients utilizing the 340B drug program. This service would be available to patients at six MHC satellite clinics in east and central Tucson, encompassing over 145,000 people. This is an important use of taxpayer funds because the only pharmacy services currently available in this area are commercial pharmacies, none which provide low-cost prescription drugs. Click here for a letter of support from Arizona State Representative David Bradley.

Looks like an ambulatory care telepharmacy operation is in the works in urban Arizona!

Minnesota Retail Telepharmacy Receives Another Grant

According to this Associated Press article, funds just keep rolling in for the rural community of Adrian, Minnesota's retail pharmacy that employs remote supervision of a pharmacy technician by a pharmacist in another MN city:

The southwestern Minnesota community of Adrian is getting $99,999 to help finance small and emerging businesses. Adrian has already identified the Sterling Drug tele-pharmacy for initial financing, and expects the grant will help create or save six jobs.
The Minnesota projects are among 44 nationwide receiving more than $4 million in stimulus funding.

Previously, the Adrian telepharmacy received a loan and a private grant. Now we're seeing more USDA federal funding for telepharmacy projects!

Minnesota Board of Pharmacy Grants Telepharmacy Variances

Back in September the Minnesota Board of Pharmacy granted and renewed a host of variances for pharmacies around the state:

New variances:
Abbot Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis was permitted to have a pharmacist provide remote verification of pre-op and post-op orders for the Edina Surgery Center so long as the pharmacist-in-charge remains the same person.

Extension to current variances:
West Duluth Clinic Pharmacy in Duluth was allowed to provide telepharmacy services to the Duluth Clinic in Remer, MN for the duration of two years so long as they continue to make visits and monitor usage.

Re-approved variances:
Cub Pharmacy in Cottage Grove and Cub Pharmacy in Shorewood were permanently allowed pharmacist certification of the prescription medication with use of the digital image of the medication so long as the pharmacist-in-charge remains the same.

Finally, Mercy Hospital Pharmacy in Moose Lake was allowed remote "After Hours Order Entry" of the hospital's physician medication orders when pharmacy is closed from normal business hours of operation from St. Luke's Hospital in Duluth, until 4/1/2011.

Idaho Board of Pharmacy 2009 Year in Review: Telepharmacy eases pharmacist shortage, restores services

The Idaho Board of Pharmacy just released their 2009 Performance Measurement Report. A retail telepharmacy project makes the Performance Highlights list:

We extended a temporary rule that will bring pharmacy services to a remote location in Idaho by means of a telepharmacy. This was a joint effort by the board, the community, our Governor, legislators and Idaho Congressman. We are seeing more of our remote areas lose their community pharmacies and we hope this will be a means of providing our citizens [with a way] to continue to have access to pharmacy services and needed medications.

Click here for the rest of the report.

Retail Telepharmacy Program in Washington "a big hit", Restores Pharmacy Services to Two Communities

Julie Garner of the University of Washington Alumni Magazine wrote an interesting article about the use of a central telepharmacy site in Bellevue to improve pharmacy services in the state of Washington:

Bellegrove started telepharmacies at the Mattawa Clinic and Wenatchee Valley Medical's Royal City Clinic in 2008. Here's how it works: The Bellegrove pharmacist talks with technicians and patients at the clinics through the Internet. The techs then fax prescriptions and insurance information to the pharmacist in Bellevue, who provides approval and instructions for filling the prescriptions. The technicians select from 128 prepackaged medications that are most used in community clinic settings.

According to the article, "Singer and his colleagues spent six months working out the telepharmacy concept with the state Board of Pharmacy to receive certification." The Washington State Board of Pharmacy seems very progressive, given the amount of telepharmacy news coming from the state.

Retail Telepharmacy Rears Head in Singapore!

Watson's Personal Care Stores, the largest health care and beauty care chain store in Asia, has posted a job listing for a pharmacy technician at a Singapore location:

The successful candidate’s primary responsibility will be to provide telepharmacy services at Pharmacy stores. You will assist Pharmacists in preparing and dispensing medications to customers via Teleconferencing, as well as to assist in the maintenance of the dispensary to fulfill legal requirements.

It sounds like it's just a tech position, and they are calling patient conferencing by a pharmacist via telecommunications "telepharmacy." Still, very cool and this is the first I've heard of this in use in Asia!

New Legislation Paves Way for Remote Dispensing in Ontario, Canada

The Ontario legislature passed Bill 179, which will allow remote dispensing in the province:

The new legislation will permit PCA Services Inc. of Oakville to roll out its PharmaTrust(TM) Med Centres across the province - something the company has been working towards for four years. Once the regulations are in place, it is expected that Med Centres will be deployed to service patients in medical clinics, hospitals, employer facilities, retail locations, and remote communities that cannot economically support a traditional drug store.

Check out the press release. We've covered the remote prescription dispensing machine previously here at the Telepharmacy Blog, and also this legislation when it was first being considered. Here are some promo videos and news pieces from Youtube:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU30LnS2qso




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-kGuOu1GQ0

Ontario company attracts "dozens of countries" to its retail telepharmacy machine

Charlene Close of 680 News out of Toronto did an informative write up on Patient Care Automation Services, Inc from Oakville, ON:

Patient Care Automation Services Inc. (PCAS) is the developer of the PharmaTrust® MedCentre which is designed for use in hospitals, pharmacies, medical clinics and workplaces. About a dozen countries are already interested in the product.

It operates much like an automated bank machine - insert your paper prescription into the machine or pick up a phone, it then connects electronically via video to an actual pharmacist who can answer any questions the patient has and then sign off on the prescription before the drugs are dispensed.

The company received a $1.5-million grant from the National Research Council of Canada today that will assist in further development and marketing it across Canada, the U.S. and the UK.

This is the company the Canadian government expressed an interest in within a press release from October 13th, and was previously covered here at the Telepharmacy blog.

UPDATE 1: October 28, more press on the Telepharmacy machine: Fierce Healthcare ran this article, complete with announcements from Canadian government officials from the National Research Council and the Minister of State for Science and Technology's office about funding the project. The article also has new info about the system's use:

Currently, trials are taking place at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto, under the supervision of the hospital's pharmacy; there are production sites at the Albany Clinic, in Toronto, and Cambridge Memorial Hospital, in Cambridge, Ont.

The system is under evaluation as a pandemic response platform by researchers at the University Health Network and the company has also just recently received approval to deploy its system in select locations in the UK.

UPDATE 2: Nov, here is the National Research Council's official statement.

A bunch of Press Releases from companies touting telepharmacy

Media Advisory/National Research Council Canada: Government of Canada to Announce Significant Investment in Local Company That Will Benefit Health Care:

PCAS is the developer of the PharmaTrust^TM MedCentre, a telepharmacy dispensing and primary care system. The system is designed for applications in hospitals, pharmacies, medical clinics, workplaces and other locations, providing patients with convenient and safe access to prescription drugs.

Baxa Announces IntelliFlowRx™ to Become DoseEdge™ Dose Management System:

The addition of Preparation Modes earlier this year allowed the system to filter and control the dose queue so that oral dose prep, extemporaneous compounding, tele-pharmacy and TPN manual additions can be tracked in addition to IV dose preparations. DoseEdge also was expanded to support TPN processing – allowing orders to be received from the Baxa Abacus™ Order Entry Software.

Hyland honors customers at OnBase Training & Technology Conference who use the ECM software suite in new ways to get notable results:

Thrifty White Pharmacy - Maple Grove, Minnesota

Operating in five states in the northern Midwest, Thrifty White serves rural communities through 89 drugstores, as well as eight Telepharmacy Stores in communities where access to a pharmacist was not previously available.

Minnesota retail telepharmacy has grand opening

The Minnesota retail pharmacy that opened a few months ago had its grand opening last week in Adrian. Julie Buntjer of the Worthington Daily Globe did a write up on the event and the pharmacy's operations:

Erpestad takes prescriptions at the Adrian telepharmacy and sends digital images of the prescription, the pill bottle and the pills to Sterling Drug in Worthington, where Hagen or a fellow pharmacist must examine each image on the computer screen and approve of the medication before it can be dispensed to the customer.

In addition to digital images, the telepharmacy utilizes web cameras, specialized computer software, voiceover Internet and a dedicated communication line. The technology also provides for one-on-one counseling between the pharmacist in Worthington and the customer in Adrian.

Kansas University to use telepharmacy in new building

Kansas University's West Campus is getting a new building that will house a pharmacy that employs telepharmacy:

A pharmacy is planned for the building, which Audus said would serve KU students, faculty and staff, so as not to compete with other pharmacies in the area. That pharmacy may use automated technology, including tele-pharmacy, he said. That’s similar to a U.S. Navy setup in San Diego where pharmacists there relay information to technicians on ships at sea, who fill the prescriptions for sailors.

The new building should open by August, 2010.

More info on Adrian's telepharmacy grant

As reported here a while back, the City of Adrian, MN received partial funding for its telepharmacy project, which restored pharmacy services to the area, in the form of a grant from the Blandin Foundation. The Nobles County Review fills us in again:

The Blandin Foundation notified the city of Adrian on March 13, 2009 that Adrian had been selected for the $50,000 grant through the Sterling Drug, Inc. telepharmacy project. The city received the funds from the Blandin Foundation and forwarded the funds to Sterling Drug, Inc. for the purchase of the telepharmacy equipment.

It is good to know that grants are available for hi-tech medical projects such as retail telepharmacies. If you are having trouble initiating or restoring pharmacy services to your area, you might borrow from Kevin Norskog's example and research available grants.

VA hints at retail telepharmacies for rural Alaskans

In a press release issued by the senior US Senator from Alaska, Lisa Murkowski, Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Eric Shinseki, spoke at a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Veterans Affairs Subcommittee and responded to questions about the VA's future approach to delivering prescription health benefits to veterans in rural areas of the state:

Cross said the VA could help Alaska through “outreach clinics,” such as those slated for Juneau and Homer, and rural health initiatives, including telemedicine programs and prescription deliveries by mail so that veterans don’t have to visit a pharmacy.

“We have much to learn and much innovation to bring forward in regard to our veterans in Alaska and we look forward to working on that,” he said.

Considering that the VA has a good idea of what telepharmacy can offer, and the head of the VA is testifying that this is more or less what they have in mind to the Senators who are going to appropriate the money, it's a good bet it will happen.

Retail Minnesota Telepharmacy up and running

An update on the Minnesota town, Adrian who got their retail pharmacy back in the form of a Telepharmacy, serviced from another town's pharmacy:

After over a year of planning and paperwork Adrian will once again have a pharmacy on Maine Street. Sterling Drug will be opening its telepharmacy in the Government Building on Tuesday, June 2.

This comes from Krisine Kern out of the Nobles County Review. According to a PDF on their website, it looks like telepharmacy equipment provider ScriptPro supplied the equipment (pdf).

Kansas State Board of Pharmacy reviewing new telepharmacy rules for retail and hospital pharmacies

Sarah Green of the Kansas Health Institute writes about upcoming telepharmacy regulation for both retail and hospital pharmacies in the state of Kansas:

The Kansas Board of Pharmacy has new regulations addressing telepharmacies under review, said Debra Billingsley, the board’s secretary.

A task force has met for the past several years to determine what regulations would best allow the expansion of telepharmacies without hurting existing brick-and-mortar businesses.

...

The new regulations are now being reviewed by state agencies; once the Department of Administration and the Attorney General’s office approve the regulations, a public hearing will be conducted. Billingsley expects the regulations to be finalized by the end of the year.

A separate task force recently began meeting to address telepharmacy operations in hospitals.

...

Eventually, once the regulations are in place, the hospital would like to provide access to its ePharmacy system to other facilities, including the state’s critical access hospitals in rural areas, Gagnon said.

“It’s going to be a big change in language of who can do what, and where you can be located,” he said. “It’s going to expand the opportunity to do new things. It’s going to be tricky to keep up with it from a legislative standpoint, as the technology continues to grow.

Add Kansas to the list of State Boards that are willing to admit that technology can help their citizens! The KHI article also has some updates from the news from about a year ago that Via Christi Health System is using telepharmacy to service outlying facilities. Green also gives a summary and update of North Dakota's telepharmacy activities:

Today, the state has 72 telepharmacy sites, arranged in a “hub and spoke” model, that provide services to underserved communities, Peterson said, many with populations between 500 and 1,000 residents. More...

Ontario, Canada considering retail telepharmacy legislation

Current law in the Canadian province of Ontario restricts the remote dispensation of medication, machines for which already exist and are being tested, and there are amendments to legislation in the works to allow remote dispensing. Check the Ontario College of Pharmacists' entry on the matter.

In an online article from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario's Sault Star:

Basically, the legislation enables the private sector to install the technology to meet demand, wherever that is, because "right now in Ontario law you have to have a pharmacist physically present," Erwin said.

Two machines have been tested at Toronto's Sunnybrook Hospital since June. British Columbia is already using the technology, he said.

The "ScriptCenter" is one model that holds between 400 and 500 unique patient prescriptions that has been approved in 35 U.S. states, he said.

The rest of the article is opinions from a couple local Ontario pharmacists who seem be more concerned about losing customers to automation than they are with the vast numbers of people who need prescriptions filled in under-served or outright unserviced areas of the province, though it could be that they simply left better reasons unspoken. As the Health Minister spokesman David Caplan seems to have said, "This is just providing another option. In no way is it meant to replace pharmacists."

Director of Institute for Rural and Community Health is Proud of University Telepharmacy program

Billy Phillips, vice president and director of the F. Marie Hall Institute for Rural and Community Health at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, writes in to the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal:

Telepharmacy currently provides pharmacy services to two small rural communities whose residents would otherwise need to travel long distances to fill their pharmacy needs.

...

I am proud to say that the outstanding health improvement programs of the F. Marie Hall Institute for Rural and Community Health and the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center are robust and continue to make a positive difference.

Grants, loans for Minnesota city telepharmacy set to bring pharmacy service back to the area

Nobles County Comissioners in Worthington, MN approved of plan to loan $25,000 to the City of Adrian, MN for installation of a telepharmacy in communication with a private pharmacy in Worthington after Adrian was awarded a $50,000 grant for broadband internet from the Blandin Foundation, and the municipality was approved for a $25,000 loan from the Worthington Regional Economic Development Corp.

Julie Buntjer of Minnesota's Worthington Daily Globe writes:

In other action, the board:

Received a request from the City of Adrian for financial assistance to help establish a telepharmacy in the Adrian Government Center.

Bruce Heitkamp, Adrian City Administrator, said the community is working with Sterling Drug of Worthington to establish a pharmacy that would allow a pharmacist to provide adequate consultation to clientele via video and teleconferencing equipment. Plans are to have a pharmacy technician on staff at the Adrian location.

“In the last year, our city council has really taken a look at health care,” said Heitkamp. When the town’s only pharmacy closed a year ago, he said it left residents scrambling for services.

“The clinic in Adrian was concerned about the ability to provide prescriptions to their clientele,” Heitkamp said.

Already the City of Adrian has been approved for a $50,000 Light Speed grant from the Blandin Foundation, and it was approved for a $25,000 loan from the Worthington Regional Economic Development Corp. Heitkamp said the city was looking to the county for another piece of financing for the project. The money would cover the estimated $100,000 cost for the telepharmacy equipment. The cost represents roughly one-fourth of the total project cost.

Commissioners voiced support for the telepharmacy and directed the county administrator to work with the WREDC and the City of Adrian to finalize the funding plan.

South Dakota gets new Telepharmacy, helps alleviate pharmacist shortage

From the article:

Just this week, the Eagle Butte location has been officially authorized as a pilot site for telepharmacy. Stephens said. That means a pharmacy technician in Eagle Butte will be able to fill prescriptions under the supervision of a pharmacist who watches the technician work via television, he said.

Stephens said he has noticed a resurgence of young people living in many of the towns Vilas serves. The courier system works well in part because of the nationwide shortage of pharmacists, he said. There are 5,000 unfilled pharmacist openings in the U.S., Stephens said.