Nine-Star Pharmacist Concept, Part 1

The pharmacist is “a person prepared to formulate, dispense, and provide clinical information on drugs or medications to health professionals and patients.” A pharmacist is a one of the person in health care team, and he plays a key role in providing quality healthcare and pharmaceutical care to the public. They are experts in medicines and use their clinical expertise, together with formulation, quality control, practical knowledge, to ensure the safe supply and use of medicines by the public. Pharmacists are responsible to ensure the quality of pharmaceuticals/medicines supplied to the patients as per the government policies/regulation, and patient pharmaceutical education including counseling of the patients.

The scope of pharmacy practice now includes patient-centered care with all the cognitive functions of counseling, providing drug information and monitoring drug therapy, as well as technical aspects of pharmaceutical services, including medicines supply management. It is in the additional role of managing drug therapy that pharmacists can now make a vital contribution to patient care. The contribution of pharmacists to health care is based, in most countries, upon a broad understanding of the scientific principles and techniques of the pharmaceutical sciences, and the ability to keep pace throughout their careers with the developments in medicine and pharmacy. Their knowledge and expertise extends to all aspects of preparation, distribution, action and uses of medications. Pharmacist’s responsibility has shifted substantially toward the utilization of pharmaceutical knowledge in the rational use of medications by the patient.

To be effective health care team members, pharmacists need skills and attitudes enabling them to assume many different functions. The concept of the “Seven-star pharmacist” was introduced by the World Health Organization (WHO) in March 2014 and covered these roles: Caregiver, decision-maker, communicator, manager, life-long learner, teacher, and leader.

The ‘seven-star pharmacist’ was a landmark concept in terms of setting benchmarks for pharmacists to provide very high quality pharmaceutical care to the patients. An addendum to the seven-star pharmacist concept has resulted in the inclusion of two new criteria, thereby giving rise to the ‘Nine-star pharmacist’. In addition to the seven roles, the inclusion of pharmacist as a researcher and an entrepreneur is quite significant.

1. CAREGIVER

2. DECISION-MAKER

3. COMMUNICATOR

4. MANAGER

5. LIFE-LONG LEARNER

6. TEACHER

7. LEADER

8. RESEARCHER

9. ENTREPRENEUR

Sumber:

Aaseer, TS., Subramani T. 2014. Seven-star pharmacist concept by World Health Organization. Journal of Young Pharmacists. Vol 6, Issue 2, Apr-Jun 2014.

Aaseer, TS., Subramani T. 2015. The Nine-Star Pharmacist: An Overview. Journal of Young Pharmacists. Vol. 7, Issue 4, Oct-Dec 2015.

The Role of the Pharmacist in the Health Care System. Preparing the Future Pharmacist: Curricular Development. Report of the Third WHO Consultative Group on the Role of the Pharmacist. Vancouver, Canada, 27-29 August 1997.