First-level healthcare services performed in bank branches, Leopardi (Utifar): "Dangerous forcing"
Strong misgivings on the part of Utifar about the initiative of the Bnl-Bnp Paribas banking group, which is preparing to offer the public, within its branches, self-analysis services and other top-level services such as blood pressure measurement, impedance test and remote electrocardiogram.
Eugene Leopardi, president of the Italian Pharmacists Technical Union, underlines that, “As a scientific society, we must stigmatize this initiative because it leaves the citizen alone in the face of difficult-to-interpret data concerning the most delicate of individual fields: health. We are aware that technology provides easy-to-use telemedicine services and we are equally aware that self-analysis is, by definition, a diagnostic approach that citizens can carry out autonomously. However, the delicate issue, which requires the intermediation of a healthcare professional, is not so much the execution of the test, but the correct understanding of the results. Leaving citizens alone in front of this data, inside a bank, is a dangerous stretch, above all in terms of health”.
Leopardi points out that, in these days, Italian pharmacies are offering a free blood sugar measurement service as part of the DiaDay initiative. This is a diabetes prevention campaign that is achieving great results and has already made it possible to identify people at high risk who have been immediately referred to a doctor. “The great added value of the pharmacy, in offering these services, is that the citizen can immediately deal with the pharmacist in a prepared and appropriate environment. The pharmacist's advice, his help in interpreting the results, information on correct lifestyles and much more represent the real service that pharmacists offer citizens on a daily basis. Without this support, self-diagnosis services cannot be useful and, indeed, risk being harmful".
Compared to the Bnl-Bnp Parisbas initiative, Leopardi underlines the strong inconsistency on the part of the banking institution. “On the one hand, there is an attempt to keep bank customers increasingly away from branches, favoring home banking services and encouraging operations at home or at ATMs. On the other hand, services like this are offered, not pertaining to the role of banks, to bring the customer back to the branch. Perhaps - concludes Leopardi - someone should clarify internally, before proposing services that are not at all relevant to their functions".
