Jane Fern's Pharmacists Guide

A community pharmacy is one which is not owned (or operated) by a publicly traded company as defined section 2(a) (7) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (15 U.S.C. 7201(a) (7)).

(Left Photo: 19th century Italian pharmacy)

Community pharmacies are pharmacist-owned, privately-held businesses in varying practice settings. They include single-store operations, pharmacist-owned multiple store locations, franchise, compounding, long term-care (LTC), specialty, and supermarket pharmacy operation.

A pharmacy (commonly the chemist in Australia, New Zealand and the UK; or drugstore in North America; retail pharmacy in industry terminology; or Apothecary, historically) is the place where most pharmacists practice the profession of pharmacy. It is the community pharmacy where the dichotomy of the profession exists—health professionals who are also retailers.

Community pharmacies usually consist of a retail storefront with a dispensary where medications are stored and dispensed. The dispensary is subject to pharmacy legislation; with requirements for storage conditions, compulsory texts, equipment, etc., specified in legislation. Where it was once the case that pharmacists stayed within the dispensary compounding/dispensing medications; there has been an increasing trend towards the use of trained pharmacy technicians while the pharmacist spends more time communicating with patients.

All pharmacies are required to have a pharmacist on-duty at all times when open. In many jurisdictions, it is also a requirement that the owner of a pharmacy must be a registered pharmacist (R.Ph.). This latter requirement has been revoked in many jurisdictions, such that many retailers (including supermarkets and mass merchandisers) now include a pharmacy as a department of their store.

Likewise, many pharmacies are now rather grocery store-like in their design. In addition to medicines and prescriptions, many now sell a diverse arrangement of additional household items such as cosmetics, shampoo, office supplies, confectionar, and snack foods.

Source: Wikipedia

Labels: community pharmacy, pharmacy