MARCH 21, 2016 – ZEARING, Ia. — Other small towns are looking to this corner of Story County for an answer to a chronic challenge: How can rural areas provide crucial pharmacy services, especially for elderly people who have trouble traveling?
Zearing leaders say the key is tucked in the corner of a former beauty parlor that has been transformed into a small drugstore. Next to the counter, organizers set up a video screen through which customers can interact with pharmacists working in larger towns.
CLICK on IMAGE TO ENLARGE … (Source: Concierge Medicine Today, (C) 2016)
The pharmacists explain how patients should take medications and avoid interactions with other drugs. Customers can ask questions and raise concerns. The video conversations, which usually take a minute or two, could soon become more common around the state.
Iowa legislators are considering a bill that would let state pharmacy regulators routinely approve tele-pharmacies instead of handling them as limited pilot projects.
Supporters expect the idea to spread to other small towns, including places where drug
Zearing, which has about 550 residents, is one of five Iowa towns where the tele-pharmacy idea has been tested. Customers at the NuCara pharmacy said the three-year-old arrangement took some getting used to.
Dorothy Perisho stopped in the other day to pick up a prescription. She said she used to drive nearly 30 miles to Wal-Mart in Ames for medications. Now she can buy them in Zearing.
Perisho, 85, said she needed help at first to use the video screen, which is similar to an iPad. But she said she got the hang of using her finger to respond to a few prompts on the screen, then speaking to a pharmacist via a phone handset attached to the video system. “It’s pretty self-explanatory,” she said. “I think it’s great. Anyone will tell you that.”
The store is staffed by a pharmacy technician, who works with pharmacists in Ames and Nevada. The technician fills orders, and one of the pharmacists visits at least monthly.
Such video communication also is being used to bring other scarce medical services, such as psychiatry, to small towns. Supporters say pharmacy could become one of the most common health care uses of the technology.
On this day, pharmacist Ashley Loeffelholz in Ames was using the video system to help pharmacy technician Lindsey Thompson fill customers’ orders in Zearing. Loeffelholz noted that instead of standing at the counter and speaking out loud to a pharmacist, the tele-pharmacy customers step to the kiosk and use the phone handset and video screen.
“You actually get a little more privacy this way,” she said.
