Special Report: Respiratory ehealth business Respiri (ASX:RSH) has signed a deal to educate Australia’s pharmacists on how to further help patients with asthma — and get its wheezo app out there in the process.
Respiri has signed a definitive service agreement with the Pharmacy Guild of Australia to develop an online training course on optimising asthma patient management, in particular children, including the role of devices in detecting wheeze.
The goal is to support pharmacists to better help patients diagnosed with asthma optimise care through understanding and complying with their asthma management plans, supported by the wheezo ehealth software-as-a-service (SaaS) app which also effectively monitors asthma wheeze.
Respiri chief Marjan Mikel says Australia’s more than 65,000 practicing pharmacists are increasingly “coming out from behind the dispensing table” and talking through with patients how to take medications and manage chronic conditions.
“About 1m patients with asthma interact with a pharmacy every month. We’ll be working with the Pharmacy Guild to develop an online program to better equip pharmacists to deal with the asthmatic patients they see every day,” he told Stockhead.
“By educating pharmacists, who are an important intermediary between an asthmatic patient and their doctor and who already sell a range of asthmatic devices within the pharmacy setting, we see them as a critical determinant in building sales momentum and significant growth within this important channel.”
Dealing with asthma, better
At issue are asthma management plans, which are often a staid list on a piece of paper, and the tie-up is to try to bring those plans to life.
“That’s where wheezo comes to life because the app includes the plan but also helps them to use it in the real world,” Mikel said.
“But pharmacists are critical to help people understand what they need to do and how they need to do it.”
The Guild is the national pharmacy body, representing over 5,700 community pharmacies across the country.
The two-year agreement is with Guild Learning and Development (GuildEd), the dedicated learning destination for all pharmacists, pharmacy assistants and interns Australia wide.
Respiri is also in talks on how to best engage with telehealth providers and general practitioners, which are the other beam in the asthma monitoring scaffold.