The main objective of this study was to design a model that would facilitate access to hospital medication during home quarantine due to COVID-19, and ensure patient satisfaction with this process. 10 These measures were designed to benefit citizens unable to count on the support of others in their environment, those who could not journey from home due to mobility problems, who suffered acute illness or complex chronic processes that placed them in the highest risk categories for COVID-19 infection, those who, due to age or physical fragility, were more vulnerable to contagion, as well as those confined to home quarantine due to coronavirus. Medication dispensing protocols were immediately established to deliver drugs to patients who could not come in person to the hospital pharmacy department. On 14 March 2020, the Spanish government declared a state of alarm to deal with the spread of COVID-19. This contributes to the fundamental objective of pharmacotherapeutic follow-up, namely guaranteeing the achievement of the pharmacotherapeutic objectives established for each type of patient. 7 8 It also allows the hospital pharmacist to perform a clinical-therapeutic assessment that is remote. 6Ī telepharmacy service enables hospital pharmacists to develop a distinct role via the implementation of pharmacovigilance services and pharmaceutical care plans for patients with comorbidities, and for special populations. Telepharmacy is, undoubtedly, a great concept, but it is sometimes challenging to put into practice due to operational difficulties or lack of time, effort, and funds.
5 It has many recognisable benefits such as easy patient access to healthcare services in remote and rural locations, savings on healthcare spending, patient satisfaction as a result of direct access to medication and information in rural areas, effective patient counselling, and a counterbalance to the scarcity of local pharmacist and pharmacy services. Telepharmacy refers to the provision of pharmaceutical care through ICT to patients at a distance. This term refers to the delivery of healthcare services through information and communication technologies (ICT), and also includes telepharmacy and telemedicine. 3ĭuring the COVID-19 pandemic, measures have been put in place to adapt to patients’ needs during home quarantine, such as “telehealthcare”. These COVID-19 characteristics underline the importance and urgency of preventing “community transmission” in overall pandemic control. It has an incubation period of 1–14 days before the onset of symptoms, however, the course of the infection can also be asymptomatic in a high percentage of patients. 2 SARS-CoV-2 is primarily transmitted human-to-human by respiratory droplets and close contact. 1 On 11 March, COVID-19 became a pandemic and impacted more than 100 countries in the following weeks. On 31 January 2020, the WHO declared the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic to be a “public health emergency of international concern”. In December 2019, the first case of coronavirus pneumonia (COVID-19) was detected in the city of Wuhan, Hubei province, China, which led to a nationwide epidemic.