Telepharmacy Rescues Drug Stores, Improves Health Care and Creates Jobs in North Dakota Towns [cont.]
Once a prescription is approved, the patient is taken to a private room – where a camera and monitor are set up – to participate in a mandatory consultation with the pharmacist.
In a traditional pharmacy, he explained, the pharmacist is legally bound only to offer consultation, which patients often refuse. North Dakota telepharmacy law, however, requires the pharmacist to talk to the patient, and NDSU outcome data suggest that the legal requirement has improved the quality of service.
"The North Dakota model of telepharmacy actually keeps the health professional in charge of the health care, using good oversight and good professional judgment," Dr. Peterson said.
"People tend to think that without a pharmacist on site, quality can't be as high. But we’ve found that quality of care is usually the same or better in telepharmacies than in a traditional setting, where the national error rate is up 2 percent."
Dr. Peterson said NDSU’s evaluations indicate that telepharmacies’ error rate is less than 1 percent, a 50 percent improvement over traditional practice and half the national average.
With the results in from North Dakota, telepharmacy is catching on in other places. Alaska, Idaho, Illinois, Montana, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Wyoming and even the entirely urban District of Columbia have all changed their pharmacy laws to allow it. Since a rules revision in 2004, North Dakota allows for hospital telepharmacy as well.
Dr. Peterson noted that retail telepharmacy owners have, on average, doubled sales on all items and increased gross profits to 1 percent above the industry average for traditional pharmacies.
"It's a win-win for patients and pharmacists," he said. "Look at small towns: they’re proud to say we have a bank, a grocery store, a hardware store, and now we have a pharmacy. It's been a great economic boost for these small communities."
Telepharmacy also is proving to be a great deal for pharmacists.
"We've found that telepharmacy has given pharmacists their lives back," Dr. Peterson noted. "Many of them used to feel like they couldn't take a break, or a family vacation, or participate in professional meetings. They felt imprisoned by their career because they couldn't get any relief.. Now they can finally take a vacation or call in sick. And hospitals are relieved because they always have backup telepharmacists on call, some of whom even work from home."
- It costs about $18,000 to set up a central or remote telepharmacy site. That includes equipment, installation and a-year of Internet service.
- Hospital sites cost an additional $5,000, because of the need for a customized, mobile cart that can be used anywhere in the hospital where there is secure, wireless connectivity.
- The North Dakota Telepharmacy Project has received a total of $3.3 million in HRSA grante funds from fiscal years 2002-05 and 2008.