Sick of Shorts

Today, we would like to write about a new website called sickofshorts.ie set up by one of our clarity locum pharmacists which helps pharmacists with information around medicine shortages.

Have you ever been in a situation where you have a script to dispense, you notice an item is short and for whatever the reason the patient can only take that brand or formulation? In those moments, you wish you could find a pharmacy that may have that product so you may be able to help the patient out or maybe get more information about alternative ways to source that product for the patient.

It is for moments like those, which are becoming all too frequent in our line of work that sickofshorts.ie was created and it is free to sign up and to use either as a pharmacy, pharmacist or pharmacy technician.

The site has a number of features to help dispensary staff with shorts.

• It provides you with the most comprehensive list of shorts in Ireland and also our site has the ability for you to see alternative product suggestions for shorts made by other pharmacy colleagues and you can contribute your own suggestions or ideas as well.

• Your pharmacy can list short products that you need for your patients, so other pharmacies can help you if they have the products sorted by their geographical proximity to you (see image below).

 

• Your pharmacy can also offer to let members of the site know you also have products that are short as well, so they can even send the patients to you.

The site was launched early in september 2020 and we have had a growing number of signups from members of the pharmacy community across the country.

Members of the network get email alerts when a pharmacy needs a product for a patient or when a member offers a product that is short as well as weekly update emails on shorts and alternatives.

Why was it set up?

The idea for creating this website stemmed from an issue that occurred whilst at work.
I was doing a locum and a woman came into the pharmacy on a Saturday, she was a patient on the product Parnate, she had arrived here on the off-chance that we would have it as her regular pharmacy which is 30km away didn’t have it. I felt her pain, but also that of her regular pharmacy and I thought, would it not be great if there was a way to ask other pharmacies nationwide in one go if they had this product and then send her there with the prescription.

A few months later I spotted that Darragh O’loughlin had to use his twitter profile to help a fellow pharmacist source Creon 25,000 and I felt there could be a better way this could be done amongst community pharmacists in Ireland.

 

 

You can sign up here for free and you can choose either a pharmacist, pharmacy technician or a pharmacy account so even members of your staff can all sign up. All you need is a working email and the site works well on mobile devices as well and it takes less than 5 mins.

If you need help with signing up, feel free to send us an email at [email protected] or view our help videos here on our website.