Abstract
Apart from providing pharmaceutical care when dispensing prescribed medicines, responding to the demand for an OTC drug or advice, is another core task of the community pharmacist. By asking the correct questions, the pharmacist collects all the necessary information to accurately estimate a patient's specific health problem. Pharmacists have a social responsibility and guarantee the responsible delivery of health products and medicines at all times, especially when it concerns non-prescription medicines or in the context of self-care. By providing this person centered care, pharmacists can distinguish themselves from other dispensing channels and can justify why the dispensing of medicines, including OTC medicines, is reserved for the pharmacy.
This brought the Association of Pharmacists Belgium (APB), together with the training institutes for pharmacists, the local pharmacists' associations, and the Belgian universities, to set up the Quality Care Program. The aim of this program is to raise awareness, to motivate and to coach community-pharmacists to provide high-quality care. The program consists of 4 main components:
1. Scientific education: knowledge is the foundation when it comes to quality of care. In addition to cooperation with the training institutes, the existing educational material is collected at a central location.
2. A knowledge test that assesses the knowledge, skills and attitude of pharmacists. The test is intended to be constructive, to confirm that people are doing well or to indicate which points deserve more attention in the pharmacist's approach.
3. Pharmacy Simulator, a serious game (educational video game), is a virtual learning program in which pharmacists learn in a playful way to ask their patients the right questions.
4. A patient perception study aims to provide feedback to pharmacists about how they approach patients with their demand for an over-the-counter medicine in their pharmacy.
The Quality Care Program was launched in 2021. Each year, the emphasis is on two therapeutic drug groups. Meanwhile, 4 cycles have already been organized on analgesics, laxatives, emergency contraception and reflux for which the global results have been published after each cycle. In the coming months we will investigate how the pharmacy simulator can be better applied and how pharmacists can learn from each other.