Making advice a selling point

A new website helps people find answers to health questions using the collective expertise of Irish pharmacists, writes MICHELLE McDONAGH

BEING DIAGNOSED with a chronic condition such as diabetes, asthma, depression or Alzheimer’s can be like having a bomb thrown into the middle of your life.

Once most people get over the initial shock of their diagnosis, the first thing they do is try to find out more about their condition, and the internet is often the first port of call.

Three out of four Irish people go online for healthcare information, according to the Slán survey of health and lifestyle in Ireland, but there is no control over the quality of the information they are getting.

Three years ago, independent Cork pharmacist Garvan Lynch and his wife Sheena came up with a novel way to provide patients with information and tools to help manage a huge range of chronic conditions.

This service is just one example of how Irish independent pharmacies are fighting back against the big groups and multiples such as Tesco and Boots.

Garvan says the service, called Intervene, is about pharmacists going back to their traditional roots and using their expertise as health professionals on the ground to ensure that the latest health management and prevention strategies are available to the communities where they live.

The service provides free health clinics and lifestyle programmes in each Intervene pharmacist’s consulting room and on their website, intervene.ie, for most of the chronic health conditions that affect Irish patients.

Lynch says the difference between this and other websites is that all of the information is based on sound, scientifically proven research, so users are not being bombarded with “wonder cures” or quick-fix diets or being unnecessarily panicked about their condition.

There is no advertising on the site and much of the clinical jargon has been cut out, the owners say.

“Our aim is to help patients to educate themselves as quickly as possible in whatever condition they are facing and to put in place the best possible management plan using everything that’s available out there to them,” says Garvan.

Garvan studied science before going on to study pharmacy and is quite happy to spend long hours trawling through the latest research findings and “siphoning through all the crap” that is on the internet.

Sheena, who comes from a business and marketing background with an emphasis on product development, is just as enthusiastic about their new project.

“As the name suggests, if you intervene and make changes, you can change outcomes,” she says.

“Just because you have osteopinea does not mean you have to progress on to develop osteoporosis. Just because your father has Alzheimers disease doesn’t mean you’ll get it.

“There is so much you can do to prevent or avoid illness from developing or deteriorating, and this is where we come in.”

The Lynches admit that their plan to change the attitudes of pharmacists in Ireland is an ambitious one, but they believe independent pharmacists would be naive to think that Ireland could not mirror the UK where, over the past decade, one-third of independent pharmacies disappeared – either absorbed into bigger groups or taken over by the multiples.

“We are never going to be able to compete on price with the likes of Tesco because the Minister for Health dictates the price, so we have no control over it. What we are banking on is that if we offer people the service and bring pharmacy back to the community level, they will support their local pharmacies,” says Sheena.

“Pharmacies in Ireland provide a very good service. We have a wealth of knowledge which we are happy to share, but this will all disappear if we are forced to compete in price wars. A lot of us will disappear and those of us who are left will be forced to change so much that our customers will not recognise us.

“Ireland is heading down the same road as the UK and for us, it’s a choice of evolve or become extinct.”

The idea behind the Intervene service is to increase customer numbers in the group’s pharmacies, although the service itself is free.

Each new customer is given a username and a password which changes every month to allow them to access the “my intervene” feature of the website and all of the information it contains.

There are now 20 pharmacies around the country signed up as Intervene associates, which means they can offer their customers the full range of services.

Each associate pays a fee for central administration of the site which Garvan and Sheena manage. This allows each pharmacy to develop and run as what they call a “multipendent” – staying independent but with the benefits of a multiple.

The average Irish person visits their pharmacy 24 times a year compared with two GP visits for a private patient and six visits for a public patient, which means pharmacists have a lot of opportunity to help people manage chronic illness in between doctor appointments, says Sheena.

“People end up in hospital every day with huge bombs like diabetes and epilepsy thrown into their lives. This generates huge fear and they need a place where they can go to get up to speed really quickly,” she says.

CASE STUDY: A PATIENT WITH ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE

The Intervene service starts with the pharmacist sitting down with the patient and carer for a once-off consultation.

The pharmacist outlines what Alzheimer’s disease is, including the causes, risk factors and disease progression.

Next, they discuss the various treatments available, including conventional medicine, alternative medicine and alternative therapies. Finally, they provide advice on how to live with Alzheimer’s. The various problems encountered by the patient and carer are addressed and solutions provided.

Following on from this consultation, the carer is then directed to the website where they enter their username and password to access the Alzheimer’s Resource Centre.

Together, with the Intervene website, the pharmacist will get the carer and patient started in managing Alzheimer’s disease regardless of what stage the patient is at.

In the early stages, the Mediterranean diet, resistance exercises and brain training have all proven to be effective treatment options. In the late stages of Alzheimer’s, sensory therapies (art, music, touch), reminiscence therapy, jigsaws and card games all have a scientific basis and are widely used all over Europe and the US with hugely positive results, says Garvan Lynch.

The user is not only given information about effective treatments, they are given step-by-step guidelines on how to start them. For example, a large selection of Mediterranean recipes are provided and the steps to creating a reminiscence therapy life book or starting touch therapy are set out very simply.

Exercise has been proven to slow down the development of Alzheimer’s and Olympic athlete Gillian O’Sullivan puts users through their paces in her specially-designed exercise videos.

Not forgetting the carer, the website features a library of helpful tips and hints on coping, along with videos of carers describing their personal experiences and the difficulties arising at each stage of Alzheimer’s.

Users can browse the Alzheimer’s disease library where they have access to articles and videos from experts relating to the management and treatment of the disease along with tips on everything from when to stop driving to legal issues and living wills.

And finally, carers and patients can keep up to date with the latest scientific research available in the field of Alzheimer’s disease so that when new treatment strategies or new drugs are released, they will be the first to know.