Day by Day

The other day I went to my local pharmacy to fill my repeat prescription for asthma medicines. Of course, during lockdown, I put my mask on when I got out of the car, scanned in to the COVID19 tracking app at the pharmacy door, and went to the counter where I asked for my repeat script.

My script had been renewed after an appointment (via phone) with my GP, and forwarded to the pharmacy via the NZ e-prescription service. When my GP said he’d pressed the ‘send’ button (I’m on the phone and he’s telling me what he’s doing in his electronic clinical information system) he said I should give the pharmacy half an hour before I went to collect my meds.

Since I had waited till almost the last day of my meds, I felt the need to call the pharmacy to find out when they would be ready so that I could collect them that day. The pharmacist told me that the script had landed in their information system and that I could come along in 15 minutes’ time. Isn’t that what they say when you hand in the hard copy?

It felt a bit like doing all this in person, from visiting the GP to going round to the pharmacy, dropping off the script, going off to the cafe across the road for a flat white while waiting, and returning to collect my meds. This time it was done by phone. And I didn’t get my flat white.

When I collected my meds, I asked the pharmacist if this is standard for their pharmacy and if they use other tools like video, email, Messenger (or similar), or the phone. The answer was yes to a combination of these tools but they couldn’t tell me about patterns of tool use, except that they’re more likely to use the phone for certain circumstances than others.

This is why our Telehealth research team is doing a survey on how pharmacists use electronic communications tools to deliver services (i.e. telehealth, or care at a distance). I’m inviting you to participate in our survey and to take a copy of this post with the QR code to share with your pharmacist to get them to complete it too.

Or follow this link to complete the survey.

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