Innovations in pharmaceutical services during COVID-19 pandemic
To ensure the safety of their staff and customers, most community pharmacists modified the environment in their pharmacy to ensure safe passage of customers. These included the installation and creation of some forms of physical barriers at the doorways or in front of the counter (60.0%). Some community pharmacies also added markings using tape on the ground to section areas to enable physical distancing between their customers, especially during payment or waiting for pharmacy services (70.4%). A large proportion of community pharmacies also provided disposable gloves available freely for staff use (61.5%), whilst most had also restricted the number of customers that would be allowed to enter the pharmacy (63.0%). Three in every four community pharmacies also had freely available hand sanitizers for use by customers (74.1%) and employees (81.5%). Some innovative services which were offered by community pharmacies encompassed medication delivery (39.3%), remote consultations (31.1%) as well as curbside delivery (37.0%) and drive-through services of medications for their customers (33.3%). Interestingly, another one in four community pharmacies also started a new collaborative program with the neighboring doctors to refer their patients with chronic disease (Table 3).