Browsing by Subject "apteekki"

Operations of pharmaceutical supply chain and medication management practices will be evaluated as part of the ongoing social and health services reform in Finland. One of the goals is to develop digital medication management tools and services to meet the needs of both healthcare professionals and medicine users. The aim of this study was to examine population's willingness to use on new digital services by community pharmacies to promote rational pharmacotherapy and to support cooperation between those involved in the medication use process. The material for this study consisted of the national population survey conducted in 2020 for the VN TEAS report “Activation of price competition for pharmaceutical products and the population's expectations for pharmacy operations” (online survey for 18–79-year-old adults, n = 1650). The survey respondents represented well the target population expect those with higher educational level were over-represented. The current study focused on questions related to digital medication management services provided by community pharmacies, which were divided into the following 4 topics to form sum variables: 1) purchasing and dispensing process of medicines (4 items), 2) customer`s communication with pharmacy and health care personnel (2 items), 3) pharmacy and healthcare personnel`s communication with the customer (4 items) and 4) support services for medication self-management (12 items). The associations of the background variables to the sum variables were calculated using cross-tabulation and the Chi-Square test. Frequencies and percentages were used to present. The majority (85–90%) of the respondents were in favor of the possibility of sending messages electronically between the customer, the community pharmacy and other healthcare personnel by using a shared communication channel, such as My Kanta to update medication information online. Multimorbidity, medication use, and higher medication costs increased the respondent’s positive attitude towards the electronic communication channel. Three-quarters (76%) of respondents were willing to use electronic medicine purchasing and dispensing services. Younger respondents (18–34 years) were more interested in these services than older ones. The electronic medication self-management support services had more discrete opinions among respondents. More than half of the respondents indicated their strong willingness to use at least one of the medication self-management support online services listed in the survey instrument. Those aged 18–34 years (69%), those with higher education (62%), those living in the Province of Southern Finland (60%) and those living in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area (67%) were more positive than others. Of the respondents who opted for pharmacy's remote online services, 55% were willing to seek advice for reconciling their medication list. According to the survey, Finnish adults are willing to use new electronic services by community pharmacies. In particular, they were willing to use a shared electronic communication channel between the customer, the pharmacy and other healthcare personnel, such as MyKanta to update information related to their medication. The willingness to have support self-care support for medication self-management primarily from the pharmacy's online services was lower than the willingness to use online purchasing and dispensing services. Of the remote medication self-management services medication reconciliation had the highest demand. Future research should focus on enhancing use of electronic medication self-management services provided by community pharmacies. Further research should also be targeted to understand medicine user needs for support as it may vary between patient groups, requiring segmentation of services.

Tutkielmassani tarkastelen apteekin reseptitiskin vuorovaikutusta. Tavoitteenani on selvittää, miten vuorovaikutuksen institutionaalisuus ilmenee eli millaiset arkivuorovaikutuksesta eroavat piirteet ovat apteekkiasioinnille tyypillisiä. Tarkasteluni kohdistuu asioinnin kokonaisra-kenteeseen sekä muihin institutionaalisuutta ilmentäviin piirteisiin: rutiinistuneisiin kysymyksiin, osallistujien roolien ilmenemiseen, termien käyttöön sekä puhuttelukäytänteisiin. Apteekki on asiointipaikkana omanlaisensa sekoitus kaupankäynnin ja terveydenhuollon diskursseja, ja se poikkeaa siten aiemmin asiointitutkimuksen kohteina olleista paikoista, kuten Kelasta, R-kioskista ja lääkärin vastaanotosta. Tutkimusmenetelmänäni on keskustelunanalyysi, ja teoriataustana hyödynnän aiempaa tutkimusta institutionaalisesta vuorovaikutuksesta, erityisesti asiointitilanteiden tutkimusta. Aineistonani on 5,5 tuntia litteroitua videomateriaalia, joka käsittää 58 vuonna 2015 resepti-tiskillä kuvattua asiointitilannetta helsinkiläisestä apteekista. Videoilla esiintyy 56 eri asiakasta ja kuusi farmasistia. Analyysi osoittaa, että reseptitiskin vuorovaikutuksesta voi muodostaa keskustelun ko-konaisrakenteen, joka koostuu tervehtimisestä, käynnin syyn esittämisestä, käynnin syyn kä-sittelystä ja keskustelusta sekä maksamisesta ja lopputervehdyksistä. Käynnin syyn käsittelyn ja lääkkeestä keskustelemisen toimintavaiheeseen kuuluvat lääkkeen määrästä, hinnasta ja käytöstä keskusteleminen, ja tämä jakso sallii ja sisältää kaikkein eniten variaatiota. Siten se onkin eniten arkivuorovaikutusta muistuttava toimintajakso. Kokonaisrakenteen alun ja lopun toimintajaksot ovat toiminnaltaan ja keskustelultaan paljon kiteytyneempiä ja toistuvatkin samankaltaisina asioinnista toiseen. Jo pelkästään se, että apteekin vuorovaikutuksen tyypillistä etenemistä on mahdollista kuvata tilanteesta toiseen toistuvana mallina ja kaavana, kertoo vuorovaikutuksen institutio-naalisuudesta. Institutionaalisuudesta kertoo myös toimintojen rutiinistuminen, jota kuvaan kahden kiteytyneen kysymyksen avulla. Institutionaaliselle vuorovaikutuksella ominaiset osanottajien toisistaan eroavat roolit ja keskinäinen epäsymmetria ovat nähtävissä siinä, miten farmasisti viittaa itseensä itsenäisenä toimijana ja instituutionsa jäsenenä sekä siinä, miten eri tavoin osanottajat käyttävät termejä. Myös osanottajien käyttämien puhuttelumuotojen voi katsoa olevan epäsymmetrisiä. Siinä missä asiakkaat usein sinuttelevat, käyttävät farmasistit implisiittisiä puhuttelun keinoja sekä pronominitonta teitittelyä.

The Finnish medicine reimbursement system is complex and several different conditions required by the Health Insurance Act (1224/2004) and the Social Insurance Institution of Finland (Kela) must be met in order to receive medicine reimbursement. The understanding of medicine reimbursement criteria from the perspective of medicine users has not been studied in Finland before, and little research has been done on the subject internationally. Medicine user-oriented research on the medicine reimbursement system, both in Finland and internationally, has largely focused on the financial opportunities of medicine users to purchase medicines and their opinions on the fairness of medicine reimbursements. The aim of this study was to obtain information on the understanding of medicine reimbursement criteria and the background factors affecting it, the implementation of price, generic substitution and medicine reimbursement counselling in pharmacies, seeking advice on medicine reimbursement, and the financial difficulties of buying prescription medicines. The material used in this study was from the population survey (n=1650), which examined the activation of price competition for pharmaceutical products and customers' expectations of pharmacy operations. The understanding of medicine reimbursement criteria, the price counselling provided in a pharmacy, the effect of financial challenges on the non-buying of medicines and the use of sources of advice related to the medicine reimbursement were described as frequency distributions. The effect of background factors on the understanding of medicine reimbursement criteria was compared using the chi-square test and logistic regression analysis. About a third (31%) of respondents told that they do not understand the basis on which medicine reimbursement is usually received for prescription medicines, and 13% had unclear why they had not been reimbursed for their prescription medicine in the past year. Especially younger age, low income, low medication use, depression and other mental health problems, lack of long-term illness, and insufficient medicine reimbursement counselling in a pharmacy were found to be associated with poorer understanding of medicine reimbursement. 72% of the participants in the study felt that they usually receive sufficient information about the prices of medicines and 61% about the reimbursement of medicines when buying prescription medicines from a pharmacy. Less than half (47%) of respondents felt that they have usually received sufficient information about how the amount of reimbursement for medicines is determined. Slightly over 70% of respondents said that they are usually told about the cheapest medicine available when buying a prescription medicine and/or are suggested to switch to a cheaper one. About 60% were usually told about the difference between the two interchangeable medicines. 88% of respondents would seek information about medicine reimbursement primarily from a pharmacy or pharmacy´s online services. About 3% of all respondents in the study had not bought a medicine prescribed by a doctor for financial reasons in the last six months. Based on the study, about a third of medicine users have remained unclear regarding medicine reimbursements, and not everyone feels that they have received sufficient counselling and information about medicine prices and medicine reimbursements when buying prescription medicines from a pharmacy. Counselling from a pharmacy was found to be related to understanding of medicine reimbursement criteria. Advise on the pricing, medicine reimbursement and generic substitution should continue to be actively provided to medicine users, so that the counselling meets the requirements of the law and the knowledge of the reimbursement system of medicine users can be improved. Based on the results of this study, counselling should be targeted in particular at younger, low-income and from mental health problems suffering medicine users, as well as those who are less familiar with reimbursement issues, for example due to low morbidity or medicine use.

Smoking poses a significant threat to public health. Major public health benefits could be attained if we could increase the incidence of smoking cessation on the national level. However, smoking cessation is often difficult, therefore different medical means have been devised to make it easier for people to quit. One of these medical means is nicotine replacement therapy(NRT). Since NRT entered the market it has been contested which kind of role counselling should have when people purchase NRT. NRT was deregulated In Finland in 2006. Prior to this thesis there has not been carried out studies that would have tried to investigate where the retailer shops are located after deregulation. The aim of this thesis is to investigate how the deregulation affected to the distribution of NRT sales in different NRT-outlets and pharmacies in 2006-2015. It is also aim to investigate if the new outlets have tangibly increased the coverage of NRT-outlets network in diverse municipalities, e.g.in more sparsely populated rural municipalities. Finnish Medical Agency‘s (FIMEA) data about NRT-outlets between the years of 2006-2015 was used as source data for this thesis. This data was analysed by comparing the number of NRToutlets and pharmacies in diverse municipalities. The municipalities have been classified regarding the area and population of diverse municipalities, among other parameters. The PDF sheet of FIMEA’s NRT-outlet data was converted into an Excel file, and using that as a basis different diagrams were made. The number of NRT-outlets grew steadily until during the year 2011 there was a slightly bigger increase in the number of NRT-outlets as NRT became available in restaurants too. Afterwards the growth of NRT-outlets diminished. It can be seen from the results that NRT-outlets, more than pharmacies, are concentrated to the crowded municipalities. On the other hand, there has hardly been an increase in the coverage of NRT-outlet network in more sparsely populated rural municipalities since deregulation took place. However, many of the municipalities that have a pharmacy and one or a few other NRT-outlets are located in Southern Finland surrounding bigger city municipalities or in Central Finland.

Adverse drug events (ADE) are a major problem which deteriorates the quality of drug therapy. They cause significant morbidity and mortality each year. ADEs are often caused by incompatible drug combinations, drug-drug interactions (DDIs). Interprosessional collaboration between health care professionals is important in improving medication safety and preventig drug interactions. The aim of this study was to investigate the most common clinically significant drug-drug interactions in outpatient care and the role of pharmacist in preventing them. The study material was an interaction data which was collected in Helsinki University Pharmacy during August 2015. DDIs and the action needed by presecribers or pharmacists to handle them were collected. Only clinically significant interactions of the SFINX interaction database i.e. D- and C-interactions were recorded. The most common D-interactions (interactions to be avoided) were fluoroquinolones or tetracyclines combined with metal ions (calcium, iron, magnesium, aluminium) (14.7 % of D-interactions) and codeine or tramadol combined with CYP2D6 enzyme inhibiting antidepressants (12.6 %). C-interactions concerned most commonly interactions between antihypertensive drugs and NSAIDs (26.2 % of C-interactions). 59.6 % of D-interactions were interactions that might result in adverse drug reactions and 40.4 % were interactions that might result in therapeutic failure. For C-interactions numbers were 49.4 % and 50.6 %, respectively. Only a few interactions (1.6 %) led to contact with the prescriber from the pharmacy, and more often (1.8 %) the pharmacist advised the patient to contact the prescriber. 32.6 % of the interactions led to pharmacist's advice. The most typical interactions which can be prevented by pharmacist's advice were chelation interactions which can be prevented by taking drugs many hours apart from each other. 59.7 % of the interactions produced no action in pharmacy. Those concerned situations where the prescriber had planned the treatment and weighed up the benefits and risks of the medication, or interactions where the drugs had been in contemporary use for a long time, and thus the pharmacist assumed that the prescriber had planned the treatment. Pharmacists should intervene in drug-drug interactions easier. To avoid unnecessary calls, communication between prescribers and community pharmacies should be developed. Pharmacists' role in preventing DDIs could be improved for example by education and by updating the operations models in collaboration with other health care. Safe and efficient drug treatment should be ensured with interprofessional collaboration, and the responsibility should not be shifted to the patient alone.