PORDENONE – Four hundred “health points” widespread throughout the region, because these points are and will be there pharmacy of Friuli Venezia Giulia, destined over a three-year period to strengthen the services they are offering to the citizen beyond drug distributionin a project that will be developed in close relationship with the regional health system and according to an operational technical specification by the end of the year.
In practice, we will go to the pharmacy more and more often for health answers that now must be sought elsewhere, from carrying out theelectrocardiogram to the management of diabetes chronic up to control of therapeutic adherence. In addition, the completely dematerialized recipe should be a reality in September. Arriving at the pharmacy it will be sufficient to present your own health insurance card and the pharmacist will read the prescription by accessing the Electronic Health Record.
THE DETAILS
These are the concrete and planning contents between services and new technological developments – contained in the three-year agreement, with the possibility of extension, which was signed yesterday in Udine by the Region, with the councilor for Health Riccardo Riccardi, and by the Friuli pharmacy system Venezia Giulia, represented by Luca Degrassi for Federfarma Fvg e Alessandra Forgiarini per Assofarma e United Pharmacy. To develop the “Pharmacy of services”, which passed a complex test in the Covid era, the Region has decided to make 1.6 million available over the three-year period and this pharmacy profile becomes part of the regional annual programming. To this amount are added 1.5 million with the budget adjustment at the end of July, for the granting of a flat-rate contribution in order to support pharmacies in the digitization processes. On the other hand, the pharmacies waive reimbursement quotas on the distribution of medicines and strips for measuring diabetes: in the first case the fee for medicines with a price greater than or equal to 30 euros is redefined from 6.50 euros to 5.80 euros plus VAT for each package distributed.
The remuneration for low-turnover pharmacies, however, will remain unchanged, to safeguard the realities that operate in more disadvantaged conditions and territories. Over the three-year period, the operation should lead to savings of 2.6 million for the regional health system, leaving the total revenues of pharmacies unchanged at 10.2-10.5 million a year. The reimbursement for the dispensing of strips for measuring blood sugar has also been reduced to 0.47 to 0.45 cents, except for the same for pharmacies in disadvantaged areas.
TIMES
In January 2024 it will start, following a tender by Arcs, the “distribution on behalf” of the strips in a pilot company, with a subsequent extension to the whole region. With the launch of this method, the Region estimates a saving of 3.4 million and at the same time “widespread and homogeneous training on the new pathways for diabetologists, general practitioners and pediatricians of free choice will be important”. The agreements also include the Region’s commitment to the centralized purchase of expensive life-saving drugs, now bought by individual pharmacies, with obvious savings due to greater bargaining capacity.
One of the key issues for the contemporary health service is accessibility to services, which this agreement addresses through «proximity, with 400 Health Points, and the implementation of digitization, which in itself is a complex path for all the guarantees that are necessary in the health sector, starting with the protection of privacy,” Riccardi underlined. In summary, he added, “the more the citizen finds an answer to his needs in proximity services, the less he overloads other structures”, now also improperly. «It is an ethical, forward-looking and well-balanced agreement», said Forgiarini and for Degrassi «it is a project with many service opportunities that we will have to build together».
Read the full article
in Il Gazzettino