Blueprint for Health

blueprint for health "Recent congressional acts have had and will have a dramatic impact on the delivery of all health care, including the practice of pharmacy. It is incumbent on all pharmacists, and particularly all community pharmacists, to familiarize themselves with these programs ~nd become active in the community organizations that will have important roles in carrymg out these government-sponsored and initiated health activities." So stated APhA Academy of General Practice of Pharmacy President Thomas Holland in announcing the development of a new slide talk which will cover such legislative acts as• • • •

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Social Security Amendments of 1965 (medicare and medicaid) Economic Opportunity A ct of 1964 Demonstration Cities and Metropolitan Development Act of 1966 (model cities) Comprehensive Health Planning and Public Health Services Amendments of 1966 (Partnership for Health)

This issue of the Journal is devoted to a background review of these programs-as is the slide talk previewed at the 1969 APhA annual meeting-in terms of their effects upon pharmacy and how pharmacists can effectively participate in these new health programs. This Journal and the slide talk (available on loan from the Order Desk, American Pharmaceutical Association) vividly show that today, more than ever before, the pharmacist has an opportunity and an obligation to understand how pharmaceutical services are an integral component of a comprehensive health care system. Pharmacists must understand that our health care system encompasses a variety of people engaged in a broad range of vocations. It includes concern for our environment as well as our physical and mental state. A comprehensive health care system attempts to provide individuals, as well as families and communities, with health education, personal preventive services, diagnostic and therapeutic services, and rehabilitative and restorative services. Health is an important national resource, and therefore comprehensive health care must be available equally to all Americans. Unfortunately, such a situation has not always been the case, because of some individua1's inability to pay for health care, the inaccessibility of certain types of health care, the shortage of health manpower and discrimination of various magnitudes. The blueprint for health described in this issue (and in the APhA slides) explains the mechanisms used in providing comprehensive health care-induding financial assistance, planning technics and stimulation of innovative programs for different patient services. In national policy statements and hearings on Partnership for Health legislation, it has been clearly delineated that.. .there are other avenues to health than the route that leads directly to the hospital bed. There are many levels of care designed to provide continuity without the expense of a hospital stay. The whole spectrum of physicians' offices, group practice clinics, hospital outpatient services, extended care and home care is gaining recognition and acceptance. There is the beginning of an articulate demand by the public for these services.

Hopefully, after a 'careful reading of the articles in this issue, pharmacists will better understand their direct as well as indirect involvement in these programs. As busy as the practicing pharmacist is with his daily routine, the time has arrived for him to pause and take stock of the activities that are developing around him. That ever-whirling wheel of change is upon us, with its forces at work to alter the delivery of health care. These forces must eventually affect the method in which pharmacists practice their profession. Pharmacists either must become a part of change or helpless victims of change. The decision remains in your hands.

-George B. Griffenhagen

Vol. NS9, No.6, June 1969

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