What is the role of the pharmacist in health care? How is that changing?
The first role is safety. … If that means we’re avoiding interactions or detecting a side effect that we can trace back and get a change in medication or dosage, that is a component of all we do all the time. … Cost is another component we’re focused on right now. … We want to see if we can do this for less money. And in many cases, we can … either in the product that we provide or in some part of the process. As an asthma patient, you went to the emergency room twice this month because it’s dry outside and it’s fall and you’re not taking your preventive medication and you had two attacks. That’s much more costly than a month’s worth of medication. We have a view of the health system, and we know the component that we can add. We help those patients understand that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. That sounds like a much more engaged pharmacist than what we’ve become accustomed to. I’m an old guy. I know how it used to be when we had corner grocery stores, corne
