Understanding: Its importance to the management of community pharmacies in Australia

Abstract

This paper explores the themes of business management competence that are regarded as most important for educating Australian community pharmacy managers. The business and health system environments of community pharmacy in Australia are changing significantly. Community pharmacy owners and managers have been slow to respond, with evidence that poor management capability is a cause. Ten key community pharmacy stakeholders, deemed to be national profession-leaders or experts in management, participated in a semi-structured focus-group interview. The findings highlighted the theme of 'understanding' as crucial to the development of the critical areas of management competence. These findings provide an informative departure point for further research which seeks to better understand management competence required by community pharmacists and how competence may be improved.