Welcome to i2P E-Magazine for July 2002.
We trust you are all busily engaged in tidying up your end of year paperwork, and given the mutliplicity of reporting to government, compliance costs for small business are still way out of proportion.

Your attention is drawn to a couple of the links that appear on the front page, near the top.
First, there is our regular E-Book download that you can quickly copy to your desktop to give you a permanent and portable version of this E-Magazine. Once on your desktop it can be used as an attachment to your e-mail program, enabling you to share this production with friends and colleagues.
Why don't you try it?
It takes approximately 25-30 seconds for a download.

Rollo Manning has sent us some information updates and various links to developments in his Tiwi Island project. For those of you who are unaware, Rollo has been instrumental in helping to establish the first indigenous pharmacy in Australia. He recently had the opportunity to present a paper at the E-Pharma conference, illustrating how IT can be adapted in the form of touch screen technology, to assist indigenous people to dispense prescriptions quickly and accurately.

There is also a link to a joint statement prepared by the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, The Australian Medical Association and the Medical Software Industry Association (MSIA) agreeing on a common standard for a universal barcode for medicinal products and services, and calling for the government to support their choice for EAN barcodes.
In the same panel, we have included a link to some background information supporting such a move.
Things have been moving briskly, because the Better Medication Management System (BMMS) people announced at the E-Pharma Conference in May, that they had already adopted EAN coding.
So it seems all the major players are now in agreement and the development of a suitable model of the BMMS can now proceed.

There is an interesting mix of articles for this edition, and I would point you to the one on EDLP as probably an article you should bookmark for future reference. This marketing concept lays out the basis on how pricing, as a major component of marketing, is being developed by major retailers, and why you will be unable to compete unless you look at similar models for your own environment.

The new financial year looks to be a challenging one, with PBS changes invetably impacting on the bottom line. As always, I2P endeavours to keep you informed of these changes to enable you to refine your strategies to accommodate these major movements in pharmaceutical activity.

Neil Johnston
July 2001