Nissen Lisa, Tett Susan
School of Pharmacy, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
J Telemed Telecare. 2003;9 Suppl 2:S39-41. doi: 10.1258/135763303322596228.
Rural and remote community pharmacies service large areas of rural Queensland, and because of the distances involved often do not meet the patients for whom they provide medication. Telepharmacy would improve the quality of pharmaceutical services provided in rural and remote areas, by allowing community pharmacists to have realtime contact with dispensing doctors, aboriginal health workers and patients via a video-phone. We used commercial (analogue) videophones to connect community pharmacists to dispensing doctors, patients in depot pharmacies (i.e. those with no pharmacist) and aboriginal health workers. However, various problems occurred and only 10 video-phone interactions were recorded during the six-month project. In all of the recorded interactions, the video-phone was actually used as a conventional telephone because a video-connection could not be established at the time of the call. (This may have been due to telephone network problems in the rural areas.) Despite these problems, all project participants showed great enthusiasm for the potential benefits of such a service.
农村和偏远社区药房服务于昆士兰州广大农村地区，由于距离较远，它们常常无法见到前来取药的患者。远程药房可让社区药剂师通过可视电话与配药医生、原住民健康工作者及患者进行实时联系，从而提高农村和偏远地区提供的药学服务质量。我们使用商用（模拟）可视电话将社区药剂师与配药医生、储备药房（即没有药剂师的药房）的患者以及原住民健康工作者连接起来。然而，出现了各种问题，在为期六个月的项目中仅记录到10次可视电话互动。在所有记录的互动中，可视电话实际上被用作传统电话，因为通话时无法建立视频连接。（这可能是由于农村地区的电话网络问题。）尽管存在这些问题，所有项目参与者对这种服务的潜在益处都表现出极大的热情。
