The Association of Consumer Health Industry, together with Pharmvestnik and Medvestnik, held a round table dedicated to the International Self-care Day, which is celebrated on July 24.

RECORDING.

Every year on June 24, under the auspices of the World Health Organization, the world starts a month dedicated to the promotion of responsible self-care, which culminates in the International Self-care Day celebrated on July 24.

Last year, the ACHI, Pharmvestnik and Medvestnik, organized a round table dedicated to this date and tried to answer the question about the prospects for developing a culture of responsible self-care in the Russian Federation.

Over the past year, the topic of responsible self-care has repeatedly appeared in the headlines. For example, recently, the focus has been on the responsibility of pharmacists for recommendations.

When discussing what prevails in the activities of a modern pharmaceutical worker - qualified assistance or advertising, we can increasingly hear the term "pharmaceutical counseling". This is the subject to which our round table was dedicated this year.

The following topics were raised during the event:
- What is the place of pharmaceutical counseling in the work of pharmacies?
- Where can be the balance between business interests and the social function of a pharmacy and how it can be achieved?
- Do consumers feed the need for pharmaceutical counseling?
- What problems can be identified in the practice of pharmaceutical counseling?
- How acute is the problem of staff shortage in the pharmacy industry?
- Is there enough responsibility of pharmaceutical workers for recommendations and how is it structured in the current regulatory framework?
- What measures can improve the quality of pharmaceutical counseling?
- What is the potential of pharmacies in supporting the healthcare system?

The participants of the discussion noted that the practice of pharmaceutical counseling will expand, as this is the trend of modern healthcare systems. Pharmaceutical workers need a system that would support them in making decisions within the framework of pharmaceutical counseling, since a visitor often comes to a pharmacy with a baggage of information received on the Internet, which, however, he/she cannot independently verify. At the same time, despite the application of distance selling of medicines, according to Roszdravnadzor, 65% of the population prefers to visit a pharmacy to get advice. The digital environment and the introduction of electronic prescriptions will contribute to the formation of the patient-doctor-pharmacist triad, which will make it possible to move forward in solving the problem of insufficient awareness of medical workers about the essence of pharmaceutical counseling.
It was proposed to consider the development and implementation of recommendations/standards on the procedure for interacting with pharmacy customers with symptoms of minor ailments to improve the quality of pharmaceutical counseling, as well as to draw the attention of the Ministry of Health of Russia to the need to consolidate in the new professional standard of a pharmaceutical worker an in-depth section on the content of pharmaceutical counseling and promotion of a healthy lifestyle.

Speakers:
• Maria Denisova, Doctor of Pharmacy, Chief Researcher, National Research Institute of Public Health naed after Semashko
• Irina Krupnova, Ph.D. in Pharmacy, Head of the Department for Licensing and Controlling of Compliance with Mandatory Requirements of the Federal Service for Surveillance in Healthcare
• Elena Nevolina, Ph.D. in Pharmacy, Executive Director of the Association of Consumer Health Industry
• Larisa Popovich, PhD in Biology, Director of the Institute of Health Economics, National Research University Higher School of Economics
• Galina Chernysheva, Deputy General Director of OJSC Amurpharmacy
Moderator:
Daria Shadrina, Head of video projects of the joint editorial office of "Medvestnik", "Pharmvestnik" and the journal "Aptekar"