Five Ways Virtual Pharmacies Can Help You Effectively Manage Your Family’s Healthcare Routine in 2022
Feel confident that you can better manage your family’s health and medications with everything in one convenient place.
These days parents are being pulled in every direction trying to balance parenting, work, school, and thrive. As a mom myself, I understand too well the difficult realities of caring for my children, my parents, and myself—all while leading and supporting my teams at work through a drastically unsettling pandemic period.
Indeed, it’s easy to feel the pressures associated with being the principal caretaker in the household.
As we begin to think about improving our various routines in the new year—work, social, even romantic—we need to make our overall health and wellness a key priority. For me, with my busy schedule, this means taking advantage of new digital tools and services that can be seamlessly integrated into my day to benefit all members of my family. And with so many easy-to-use digital health services available right now, I’m able to get the balance I require to spend more quality time with my family and to practice self care.
Over the past few years, there has been a wide range of new digital services changing the way we access healthcare in Canada. Virtual doctor and/or specialist appointments, connecting digitally with fitness and diet trackers; all have brought our health and wellness closer to home. Even making sure there is fresh fruit and nutritious meal ingredients in my fridge has been made easy with online apps.
One service, however, that has seen slower development is community-based pharmacy services. When my five year-old son received some less than ideal health news during the pandemic, I was quick to identify an online pharmacy service that would allow me to order and track his medication regime without having to line up and wait at my local pharmacy—it was a game-changer. These services are becoming more available and more convenient. TELUS Health recently launched its app-enabled Virtual Pharmacy service to help families across Canada (excluding Quebec) with a key aspect of their health and wellness: easier and more convenient access to medications and personal pharmacy support.
Canadians are struggling to get to their neighbourhood pharmacy
A recent survey by Leger for TELUS Health found that one-third of Canadians said they often missed picking up prescription medications. Nearly 60 per cent said this was because they forgot, while almost 50 per cent said they were too busy and/or too focused on work or family responsibilities. This result was particularly common among respondents between the ages of 30 and 45 who are often coined as the “sandwich generation”—those who find themselves in the middle—caring for their children and often their own parents.
The research indicates that these challenges are largely unaddressed as only four out of 10 respondents indicated that they were using a virtual pharmacy service to access their medications; one-quarter of respondents reported not knowing that virtual pharmacy services even exist.
Using virtual pharmacies to keep your family’s healthcare routine on track
As the seasons change and parents experience the ebbs and flows of their schedules, compounded by the on and off restrictions of COVID-19, picking up medications in-person from a local pharmacy may present a challenge for many. Virtual pharmacy services, such as TELUS Health Virtual Pharmacy, can help by:
1. Giving you greater control over managing your family’s health from your smartphone, tablet or computer.
Feel confident that you can better manage your family’s health and medications with everything in one convenient place with easy-to-use and proven technology; and get personal advice from friendly, knowledgeable and licensed Canadian pharmacists through voice, video, or chat support—from the comfort of your home, and on your schedule.
2. Having medications delivered right to your doorstep
You’re busy, so avoid waiting in lines at your virtual pharmacy services which allow you to simply enter your drug coverage information, transfer new and/or existing medications to your account, and set up automatic prescription refills reminders. Prescriptions are shipped right to your front door—or to the door of your aging parent who may need help with frequent medication refills or convenient delivery.
3. The ability to manage multiple prescriptions
Virtual pharmacies have the potential to make life easier, especially for busy Canadians who are managing multiple health conditions for themselves, and also loved ones. People who take regular prescription medications can use these virtual services to have peace of mind that refill prescriptions will arrive on schedule so it’s one less thing to worry about. Services like MedPack can also be used alongside virtual pharmacies—which provide a customized pill dispenser that makes it easier to take one’s medications accurately and for travel.
Getting back more time with virtual pharmacy
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, many families in Canada were struggling to obtain feasible access to healthcare support services. One in eight Canadians currently do not have access to a family physician or primary health team, and wait times for routine appointments are growing. We are in a constant state of healthcare uncertainty. Canadians need support, especially parents who are responsible for their entire family’s health.
Virtual pharmacy services can make life easier for parents but more importantly, give them the most valuable commodity of all, time. The ability to tick boxes on their to-do list; the peace of mind knowing that prescription refills will be automatically sent to them directly; and the power to keep their family healthy, no matter their age, so they can spend more time together. These unique tools can help balance the broad spectrum of responsibilities that come with caring for children and aging parents, by keeping everything in one easily accessible, and convenient place.
