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The pharmacy network, a decisive asset in the management of current and future health crises
The pharmacy network, a decisive asset in the management of current and future health crises

OpenHealth Company, committed to monitoring an unprecedented health crisis, mobilizes its technology and data

Maxime LE MOIGNIC avatar
Written by Maxime LE MOIGNIC
Updated over a week ago

Our technology platform, expertise and data are currently fully mobilized to serve:

  • French and European health authorities on the monitoring of visits to pharmacies and the evolution of drug consumption in the population

  • from the international network GIHSN (Global Influenza Hospital Surveillance Network) - a public-private partnership under the aegis of the Foundation for Influenza Epidemiology combining resources from the US and Chinese CDCs and mobilising around 100 hospitals in 23 countries - which generates epidemiological and virological data on patients hospitalised with acute respiratory illness

  • from our European partners in Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Poland, with whom we are working to set up in the very short term, in the framework of a European call, a sentinel observatory for monitoring the spread of non-severe cases of Covid-19, key in monitoring the crisis

Objectives of the study

This study, conducted over the period S8 and S12 2020 for the EPI-PHARE group of the ANSM, mobilises data from a large pharmacy panel (nearly 11,000 pharmacies, i.e. more than one in two French pharmacies) collected and processed daily in a fully industrialised and auditable manner.

The main objective of the study is to highlight the resilience of the network, its capacity of the pharmacy network to absorb - in a sudden and brutal way - an increase in the number of visits to pharmacies in the context of the containment measures that came into force at 12:00 on 17/03/2020.

Discussion: through this study, OpenHealth wishes to recall the French specificity of its pharmacy network which must be considered as a regulatory lever in the measures of the next days to prevent any saturation of our care system.

Synthesis of results and discussion

- Very significant increases from S8 to S12 2020 compared to last year, mainly driven by non-prescription

- Less marked evolutions in the West, much more significant in the East and especially in Ile-de-France

- Constantly increasing evolutions over the weeks

- A week S12 2020 marked by a very strong increase in passages, concentrated on Monday 16 and Tuesday 17, particularly on non-prescription.

Discussion

- These elements demonstrate the capacity to mobilise the pharmacy network in the short term and in a brutal manner as well as its resilience in the current context.

- This network - in daily contact with the entire population - is a key lever for efficiency in health crisis management. In concrete terms, dispensing pharmacists could be mobilised in the short term to carry out a massive testing campaign and/or to be the platform for the dissemination of health products within the local territory.

Since S8 2020, the total number of additional passes in pharmacies is constantly increasing

Source: OpenHealth extrapolated panel; data updated to 22/03/2020 at 07:50

In-total-these-last-5-weeks-while-13.5-million-additional-passes-in-officine-are-observed-the-network-is-not-saturated

Comparison of the cumulative weeks from S8 2020 (starting Monday 17/02/2020) to S12 2020 (stopped on Friday 20/03/2020)

Source: OpenHealth extrapolated panel; data updated to 22/03/2020 at 07:50

This last week, the number of passages doubled on the single day of Monday 16 March before retracting abruptly on Friday 20 March

Source: OpenHealth extrapolated panel; data updated to 22/03/2020 at 07:50

This excess of visits to pharmacies is observed throughout the national territory and is particularly marked in the IDF and Grand-Est

Comparison of the cumulative weeks from S8 2020 (starting on Monday 17/02/2020) to S12 2020 (stopped on Friday 20/03/2020)

Source: OpenHealth extrapolated panel; data updated to 22/03/2020 at 07:50

Non-prescription pharmacy visits mainly explain this change

Comparison of the cumulative weeks from S8 2020 (starting on Monday 17/02/2020) to S12 2020 (stopped on Friday 20/03/2020)

Source: OpenHealth extrapolated panel; data updated to 22/03/2020 at 07:50

Literacy

1 - The data source: OHC Extrapolated Panel

- OHC (OpenHealth Company) collects and processes 100% of sales receipts from 10,966 pharmacies (Selfcare, dermocosmetics, prescription, veterinary, etc.)

- The OHC panel is representative of the national universe in terms of overall turnover, area of location, VAT structure

- OHC sell-out data (national and territorial) is based on a single panel

- A particularly representative panel of large Selfcare pharmacies:

> The multi-layered model is a multidimensional model of the pharmacy universe. There are as many aspects of dimensions as there are stratification criteria

> The panel was strengthened on pharmacies over €5M. (68% panelist coverage on this group of pharmacies)

2 - Definition of study indicators

3 - Methodology of the study

Product scope: All products dispensed in city pharmacies

Geographic scope : Metropolitan France excluding Corsica
Geographic granularity : Administrative regions and Total

Time scope: weeks S5 to S12 2019 and 2020
Time granularity : weekly
Definitions of a week : from Monday at 00:00 until Sunday at 23:59
Definition of a weekly comparison : evolution between a week in the year 2020 with the same week number in the year 2019
Study start date: S8 2020, starting on Monday 17/02/2020
Sales for weeks S11 and S12 2020 are estimates, and in fact are not yet fixed

Indicators:
- Number of dispensations in total, off- and on-prescription
- Sales volumes in consumer units (boxes) in total, off- and on-prescription
Additional: difference for each of these 2 indicators, over a given period, between the observed value with the observed value over the same period in year N-1


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