Baiair Medical Launches Pharmacy Services Academy to Elevate Retail Pharmacies into Specialized Care Providers

On August 13, the 2019 Westpu Conference was held in Boao, China. During the conference, Baheal Medical Group, in collaboration with Sinohealth Information and 16 top-100 pharmacy chains including Laobaixing, Yixintang, Dashenlin, and Yifeng, launched professional pharmaceutical care training programs to jointly establish a Pharmaceutical Care Academy characterized by authority, systematicity, and practicality.

Baheal Professional Pharmaceutical Services Academy Launch Ceremony

Benefiting from policies such as enhanced healthcare cost containment, accelerated separation of prescribing and dispensing, and the elimination of drug markups, the outflow of prescriptions has accelerated, bringing substantial incremental growth to the retail pharmacy market. Meanwhile, the intensifying aging population in China and the rising demand for chronic disease health management have also created significant opportunities for retail pharmacies. However, among more than 400,000 pharmacies in China, only over 3,000 possess the capability to provide professional prescription drugs, accounting for less than 1%, and merely 60 pharmacies have been certified as specialized pharmacies by the China Pharmaceutical Commerce Association.

The underlying causes of insufficient prescription fulfillment capacity and the scarcity of specialized pharmacies are the shortage of professional pharmacists and the long-standing absence of a systematic pharmacist training framework. According to the 2019 Survey on the Professionalism of Pharmacists in China’s Top 100 Pharmacy Chains, released by Sinohealth CMH, as many as 51.8% of respondents believed that the training knowledge was fragmented and unsystematic, while another 34.46% considered the training content overly specialized, hindering daily operations and making it difficult to provide professional pharmaceutical care services to patients in retail pharmacies.

At the conference opening ceremony, during the report on trends in the health industry development, Fu Gang, Chairman of Baheal Medical Group, stated: “The essence of a pharmacy lies in its role as a pharmaceutical care service center. To connect with prescription drug sources, retail pharmacies must undergo transformation and upgrading toward specialization and efficiency, aligning with the standards of professional multinational pharmaceutical companies to adapt to new regulations. Therefore, the Baheal Pharmaceutical Care Service Academy, jointly established by us and various partners, will help retail pharmacies develop capabilities in prescription drug supply and services, facilitate their access to high-quality hospital resources, and establish sustainable collaborative relationships between pharmacies and industrial enterprises. Through resource integration, traditional chain pharmacies will transform into regional pharmaceutical care service centers, driving the iterative upgrade of China’s pharmaceutical retail enterprises through professional expertise.”

Baheal Pharmaceutical Care Services Academy will adopt a “patient-centric” approach, collaborating with medical, pharmaceutical, and retail experts to jointly develop professional pharmaceutical care courses. It is committed to providing authoritative, systematic, and practical pharmaceutical care training for retail terminals. The Academy will help pharmacists enhance their capabilities in managing specific chronic diseases, comprehensively implementing patient health screening, medication guidance for high-value prescription drugs, and health management, thereby ensuring the rational use of medications by patients.

As more high-value prescription drugs flow into outpatient pharmacies, the market urgently needs a cohort of professional pharmacies with pharmaceutical care capabilities. In addition to enhancing their professional pharmaceutical care services, these specialized pharmacies must address core issues such as prescription fulfillment, health insurance integration, and standardized logistics. Only by doing so can they achieve orderly coordination with medical institutions at all levels and assume the historic responsibility of prescription drug sales.

As a professional pharmaceutical commercialization platform, Baheal Medical will support pharmacies in upgrading to professional pharmacies through prescription traffic generation, comprehensive supply chain solutions, and innovative category marketing. It aims to reconstruct health consumption scenarios, stimulate greater vitality in the pharmaceutical retail market, provide patients with more professional health management services, and contribute to the implementation of the Healthy China Initiative.