"We pharmacists, more than general practitioners, are figures who are undergoing a phenomenon of marginalization that is evident not only in economic but above all professional terms".
Saturday, 27 September 2014 – Pharmacist33
There is an ongoing process of economic but above all professional marginalization of pharmacists and it is also evident in the fact that for the treatment of many of the most important pathologies citizens often have to go to the hospital. In this context, integration with primary care players becomes essential. An integration that will increasingly have to go through the 
primary care organisations, from health homes to AFTs. Reflection was launched by Francis Schito(photo) vice president of Assofarm, in the aftermath of the national convention of Simg, the most authoritative of the scientific societies of general medicine, in which the need for a "historic transition from general to primary medicine" was reaffirmed which seizes the opportunities represented by the reorganization of assistance in the area, also outlined in the Health Pact, with "an offer of new services, innovative services, excellent assistance at the patient's home" and which, as is already the case in some cooperatives, is loaded with an «integrated services» proposal and with «entrepreneurial management of the activities of providers of complex services aimed at chronic patients». This is an evolution that must also take place in the world of pharmacies: «Within the health service» Schito explains «we, more than general practitioners, are figures who are undergoing a phenomenon of evident marginalization not only in economic terms but above all professional. That the average cost of drugs (consolidated and equivalent) currently distributed in pharmacies is now equal to 3 euros actually means that innovation is mostly outside the pharmacy and that a reference point for the treatment of many of the most important pathologies are more and more hospitals. It is true that in the Pact for health there is an important passage which reclaims the role of the pharmacy and relaunches the pharmacy of services within the NHS but the fear is that it is more of an addendum than a real objective and already now the forms of aggregation of primary care see a cooperation of general practitioners, specialists and nurses but not of pharmacies". Here then is that «to counter this phenomenon of marginalisation, a viable path may be that of integrating not so much pharmacists but pharmacies with these forms of aggregation. An integration that naturally cannot take place on a physical level but only in functional terms, through the shared taking charge of the patient, with the sharing of data, which would also make it possible to monitor compliance and compliance with the therapy , and also with the return of innovation».
Frances Giani
