Researchers’ Work from University of Bern Focuses on Clinical and Social Pharmacy (Vision and practice of self-care for community pharmacy in Switzerland): Drugs and Therapies – Clinical and Social Pharmacy

2023 APR 25 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- Investigators publish new report on clinical and social pharmacy. According to news originating from Bern, Switzerland, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “Switzerland is a federal country with a liberal health system built on private mandatory health insurance where the government has three different roles (health protector, guarantor of the offered care and regulator). Health is mostly considered as a responsibility that lies with the individual person.”

The news editors obtained a quote from the research from University of Bern: “Swiss health policies do not include the term ‘self-care’, although, the federal policy strategy established for this decade (Health2030) includes objectives and lines of action, some of which could be classified as self-care. Swiss policies do not specify the role of health professionals; therefore, it is up to each canton (the terminology used to describe a state of the Swiss Confederation), organization or enterprise to stipulate it. Regarding pharmacists, 1844 community pharmacies (CPs) take care of nearly 260,000 patients each day. The CPs play an important role in self-care that includes activities such as improving patients’ health literacy, screening for different health problems, self-medication education or recommendation related to non-prescription medication. The government understands and emphasizes the importance of CPs’ role in primary health care to overcome some of the health care system challenges, part of these actions related to self-care. However, there is scope for expansion regarding the role of the CPs in self-care. Nowadays the services and activities related are driven by health authorities (i.e., pharmacists’ autonomous prescribing, vaccination, strategy for the prevention of non-communicable diseases or digitization of electronic patients’ record), professional pharmacy associations (i.e., netCare® or screening tests), health foundations (i.e., prevention of addiction) and/or private stakeholders such as chain pharmacies (i.e., screening tests).”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “The possibility of including some of these services related to self-care (even when no medication is supplied) as covered services for the mandatory health insurance is currently politically discussed. Long-term actions that also include remuneration, monitoring and quality assurance, or communication/information to public should be considered to support a broader implementation and the sustainability of CPs’ services related to self-care.”

For more information on this research see: Vision and practice of self-care for community pharmacy in Switzerland. Exploratory Research in Clinical and Social Pharmacy, 2023,9():100253. The publisher for Exploratory Research in Clinical and Social Pharmacy is Elsevier.

A free version of this journal article is available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rcsop.2023.100253.

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Stephen P. Jenkinson, Institute of Primary Health Care (BIHAM), University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland. Additional authors for this research include Noelia Amador-Fernandez, Jerome Berger.

(Our reports deliver fact-based news of research and discoveries from around the world.)