Around 100 pharmacists and experts from Jordan and Palestine recently participated in a one-day workshop organised by Bayer Middle East aimed at equipping them with the necessary basic skill sets required to work with patients and understand their needs.

The workshop was received with great enthusiasm by the attendees, with many of them eager to learn how to solve challenges and provide the best services possible to patients, said a statement.

The organisation of this workshop comes in conjunction with the constantly evolving healthcare space in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region; pharmacists are increasingly playing the critical role of providing a more patient-centric approach that requires them to deliver the key service of medication management, medication reconciliation, prophylaxis services (initial screening), education, behavioural counselling and the management of the pharmacy model effectively, it said.

Pharmacists in the Middle East are an integral part of the healthcare system, as they are the first point of contact for patients, which makes it critical for them to continuously develop their skills and abilities, enabling them to provide the best services, whether giving an initial diagnosis, recommending the appropriate doctor supervision or aiming to reduce patient suffering and alleviate symptoms, it added.

The opening speech was given by Dr Zaid Rawhi Al Kilani, secretary of the board of the Jordan Pharmacist Association, on organising the workshops conducted under the supervision of industry experts and specialists, creating the perfect platform to consolidate the exchange of experiences between pharmacists from both Jordan and Palestine, providing them with key insights on working with time management, financial understanding and maximising positivity, while minimising physical and mental stress in patients.

As well as the exchange of experiences and the best practices, in line with the concept of the ‘Seven-Stars‘, which defines the modern roles of a pharmacist as caregiver, provider of information, decision maker, teacher, life-long student, leader and manager.

On his part, Dr Yazan Alahmad, country division head of consumer care at Bayer Levant, said: “Training pharmacists to become experts in providing pharmaceutical care is a part of our ongoing global efforts to recognise the important role they play in healthcare infrastructure, in order to support patient needs.”

“We strongly encourage the development of our pharmacists to become seven-star experts, given that the pharmaceutical partnership is of the utmost importance, increasing the level of awareness among patients and working towards achieving the ultimate goal of providing distinguished services to the patients of the Arab World,” he added.

Notably, the workshop falls under Bayer‘s Prestige club initiatives, which are geared towards furthering the development of pharmacists’ skills within the concept of seven-star pharmacists, a concept launched by WHO and FIP in November 2006, which aims to address the need of pharmacists to meet ever-increasing health demands, represented by an ever-growing and complex range of medicines, and the evolution of the pharmacist’s role into a more patient-centric one, it stated. – TradeArabia News Service