FIP reports highlight need to compensate pharmacists as role changes
DÜSSELDORF, Germany — The International Pharmacy Federation (FIP) on Wednesday released findings from two of its reports about the state of pharmacists worldwide and the need for recognition and compensation for pharmacies in a landscape that is emphasizing pharmacy’s ability to influence health outcomes.
The organization’s trend report on the pharmacy workforce found that the number of pharmacists per 10,000 people has grown globally in the last three years. However, there are several countries that are still lacking in the number of pharmacists helping residents, particularly among low- and middle-income countries with low population density.
“It is important to monitor the global pharmacy workforce so that we can make informed decisions on how best to use our pharmacists,” FIPEd development team director Ian Bates said. “In particular, the increases we have seen [in middle- and low-income countries] may not be keeping pace with shifts in disease burden.”
Only three out of 51 countries covered in the report saw a decrease in the number of pharmacists, but overall, the news in the report points to a growing role for pharmacists to help provide outcomes for a population.
“The overall growth we have found reflects positive changes in policy and capacity building to facilitate extended roles, and a shift in focus in pharmacy to patients,” said Christopher John, director of the FIP-RPS Global Workforce Observatory, a joint project with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society in the U.K. “Pharmaceutical service development and new scope and roles for clinical pharmacy implies increased demand on the pharmacy workforce worldwide.”
The demand being placed on pharmacists, though, doesn’t always line up with a good system for compensating them for their efforts according to data from FIP’s first-of-its-kind report on the sustainability of pharmacy services, which focused on remuneration models for community pharmacy. In each of the 49 countries surveyed, compensation was an issue that FIP outlined, and the report calls for compensation based both on the pharmacy’s need to help provide medication, advice and outcomes, as well as a need for recognition of the pharmacy’s role.
“Pharmacy remuneration models need to value what pharmacies already bring to patients’ use of medicines, public health, health systems and the economy, as well as to embrace the extended roles and collaborative practices within primary health care and hospital care,” the survey’s executive summary said, adding that models “must ensure the sustainability and profitablility of pharmacies and the basic services they provide. Payments for additional services have to incorporate the resulting costs while providing the right incentives for the implementation of these new services.”
Though the survey takes a global scope, the suggestions seem especially prescient in light of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ latest announcement, which is changing the incentives available to community pharmacies that provide Medication Therapy Management services on a more personalized level. The Enhanced MTM model seems aimed at what the FIP survey highlights, namely, adding incentives for pharmacies that work harder to provide better outcomes.
“We present this report so that our members have a fresh, global view of the state of remuneration,” FIP CEO and general secretary Luc Besançon said. “From this they can reflect on their own systems, the direction of pharmacy and what they want to achieve for the profession. This report is intended to support them with ideas, options and comparisons to build more sustainable remuneration models, which, ultimately, will allow pharmacies to continue to care for patients.”