COMMUNITY PHARMACY AND MANAGEMENT – THEORY

Course Code: ER20-22T                                                             `             75 Hours (3 Hours/week)Scope: The course is designed to impart basic knowledge and skills to provide various pharmaceutical care services to patients and general practitioners in the community setup.

Course Objectives: This course will discuss the following:

  1. Establishing and running a community pharmacy and its legal requirements
  2. Professional aspects of handling and filling prescriptions
  3. Patient counselling on    diseases,       prescription      and    or    non-prescription medicines
  4. Scope for performing basic health screening in community pharmacy settings

Course Outcomes: Upon successful completion of this course, the students will be able to

  1. Describe the establishment, legal requirements, and effective administration of a community pharmacy
  2. Professionally handle prescriptions and dispense medications
  3. Counsel patients about the disease, prescription and or non-prescription medicines
  4. Perform basic health screening on patients and interpret the reports in the community pharmacy settings
Syllabus:

Chapter

Topic

Hours

Marks

1

Community Pharmacy Practice: Definition, history and development of community pharmacy - International and Indian Scenarios.

2

10

2

· Professional responsibilities of community pharmacists.

· Introduction to the concept of Good Pharmacy Practice and SOPs.

3

5

3

Prescription and prescription handling:

· Definition, parts of prescriptions, legality of prescriptions, prescription handling, labelling of dispensed medications (Main label, ancillary label, pictograms), brief instructions on medication usage.

· Dispensing process, Good Dispensing Practices, dispensing errors and strategies to minimize them.

7

10

4

Communication skills:

· Definition, types of communication skills.

· Interactions with professionals and patients.

· Verbal communication skills (one-to-one, over the telephone).

· Written communication skills.

· Body language.

· Patient interview techniques.

6

10

5

Patient counselling:

· Definition and benefits of patient counselling.

· Stages of patient counselling - Introduction, counselling content, counselling process, and closing the counselling session.

· Barriers to effective counselling - Types and strategies to overcome the barriers.

· Patient counselling points for chronic diseases/disorders - Hypertension, Diabetes, Asthma, Tuberculosis, Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and AIDS.

· Patient Package Inserts - Definition, importance and benefits, Scenarios of PPI use in India and other countries.

· Patient Information leaflets - Definition and uses.

10

10

6

Medication Adherence:

Definition, factors influencing non- adherence, strategies to overcome non-adherence.

2

5

7

Health Screening Services in Community Pharmacy: Introduction, scope, and importance of various health screening services - for routine monitoring of patients, early detection, and referral of undiagnosed cases.

5

10

8

Over the Counter (OTC) Medications:

· Definition, need and role of Pharmacists in OTC medication dispensing.

· OTC medications in India, counselling for OTC products.

· Self-medication and role of pharmacists in promoting the safe practices during self-medication.

· Responding to symptoms, minor ailments, and advice for self-care in conditions such as - Pain management, Cough, Cold, Diarrhoea, Constipation, Vomiting, Fever, Sore throat, Skin disorders, Oral health (mouth ulcers, dental pain, gum swelling).

15

15

9

Community Pharmacy Management:

· Legal requirements to set up a community pharmacy.

· Site selection requirements.

· Pharmacy designs and interiors.

· Vendor selection and ordering.

· Procurement, inventory control methods, and inventory management.

· Financial planning and management.

· Accountancy in community pharmacy – Day book, Cash book.

· Introduction to pharmacy operation software – usefulness and availability.

· Customer Relation Management (CRM).

· Audits in Pharmacies.

· SOP of Pharmacy Management.

· Introduction to Digital Health, mHealth and Online pharmacies.

25

13
 

TOTAL

75

88