The Indian American Pharmacist (IAP) is in the process to expand the scope of installation and usage of its Digital Medication Record (DMR) software with the retail pharmacists in India. In this regard, it has sent in a formal invitation to the Karnataka State Pharmacy Council (KSPC) to visit the US along with its team of registered retail pharmacists to have a first-hand exposure on the functioning of American Retail Pharmacies in Los Angeles. The cost of this US trip will be the onus of every pharmacist. IAP will provide free continuing education opportunity.

To begin with, we invited KSPC and will extend this invitation to other State Pharmacy Councils in India. The objective is to ensure that registered retail pharmacists visiting the US and interacting with American Retail Pharmacists will be able to replicate the good pharmacy practices in the developed world back home, IAP president Basavaraj Banapur told Pharmabiz.

It will give them ample exposure and experience on operation of the US pharmacy business and enable them to improve the community pharmacies services in India, he added.

Viewing the way pharmacy is being currently practiced in India, where around 10 lakh retail-wholesale pharmacy outlets located across the nook and corner of the country are the first point of contact for the patient by his family, IAP opines that use of DMR could further strengthen patient care.

Although DMR was originally designed for the Pharm D practitioners, extending it to retail pharmacist who are familiar with medication practices of patients in India will be a key step to achieve digital pharmacy care in India. Besides, we could also ensure that these retail pharmacists could also be engaged in reporting ADRs to the State Pharmacy Councils in India, said Banapur.

Confirming the invite from IAP, DA Gundu Rao, president, Karnataka State Pharmacy Council, said that in the community pharmacy, US has made remarkable progress and therefore it would be a great exposure for the retail pharmacists from India to garner the adequate exposure.

“DMR is user-friendly and with the little bit of training a retail pharmacist can create patient medication profiles. Since it features alerts about drug-drug and drug-disease interaction, ample caution will be taken by pharmacist before dispensing the medication to the patients. IAP sees its DMR to increase patient participation to enable co-ordination with healthcare professionals. In addition, it will also ensure better diagnostics and improve healthcare efficiencies,” said Banapur.

The seamless information flow within a digital healthcare infrastructure, created by electronic health records and now DMR  can change the face of patient care. IAP is also looking for active participation from the medical fraternity, nurses and paramedics to use DMR, he said.