EDITORIAL

Our publishing date was interrupted this month by the positioning of the E-Pharma conference right at the end of May. It was well worth the time spent in attendance, and it was gratifying that three of the i2P writers were invited to speak (actually four, but one was not able to be available).

Subjects covered were as diverse as Internet privacy and security from a legal standpoint, the Better medication Management System ( and it was good to know that standards have been set for bar-codes and encryption levels for document transmission). There was a session on gene technology, which points to a totally new range of future drugs, an example of an E-Pharmacy, using publications over the Internet as a marketing tool, and IT developments in the Tiwi Island pharmacy.
Another presenter discussed HIC problems and solutions, plus many other interesting IT subjects covered by expert speakers.

The big news, which broke at the end of May, is the New Zealand government backdown from deregulation. The New Zealand Pharmacy Guild, closely advised by its Australian counterpart, successfully mounted a political campaign that exposed the "mandate" falsely claimed by government to basically destroy a good working model of pharmacy.
It is gratifying that this was not allowed to become a precedent for others to follow, and although the final compromise still leaves a few openings for the NZ government to exploit, the whole process is contained for the immediate future.

This month we welcome a new writer in the form of Karalyn Huxhagen.
Karalyn is a national PSA councilor, the manager of a busy pharmacy and with an interest in marketing complementary medicines. This is what she presents in her first article.
She is most welcome, because we have been trying to induce more females to write for us, so as to reflect a more balanced perspective on pharmacy.

Pat Gallagher is back with a copy of a conference paper he presented on small business management, and some of the approaches to embrace Information Technology. It is quite a lengthy paper, but well worth the read.

A range of our writers have embraced the new Pharmaceutical Society announcement of the Medication Assistance Service (MAS) and see it as a positive step forward in the armoury of payments being provided for pharmacist cognitive services. Peter Sayers has taken a particularly proactive stance, and provides a range of ideas to develop the program.

With the spate of publicity surrounding obesity in Australia and the sharp rise in PBS costs, Simon Rudderham discusses some of the health hazards of eating.

Rollo Manning and Ayron Teed have also sent in some interesting material as has Andrew Snow.

We do hope you enjoy our current offering.

Neil Johnston
June 2002

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