Cholesterol measuring
Cholesterol measuring
The community pharmacy is an easily accessible, well accepted, and effective site for cholesterol screenings. Pharmacist interventions may help patients reduce their risk of coronary heart disease; and the pharmacy may benefit financially from an increase in dispensing lipid-lowering medications some of which can be bought over the counter (OTC).
Within primary care Cholesterol testing is often completed with a blood lipid test but you can also get a similar (POCT) completed at the community pharmacy. This is a check-up that can help spot early signs of problems like Coronary Heart Disease (CHD). The test can be done by pricking your finger. A drop of blood is put on a strip of paper. This is put into a machine that checks your cholesterol in a few minutes.
The pharmacist can then offer advice if it is needed on how to live a healthy lifestyle and reduce the reading if it is high.
A cholesterol test is a great opportunity to talk about other (CHD) related areas for example:
- High blood pressure
- Heart disease
- Diabetes
- Stroke.
- Being overweight
- Smoking
- Excess alcohol consumption
- Physical inactivity
It is also a good opportunity for link selling e.g. offering lipid lowering medications. A charge for the actual service may also apply to the patient.
There is also some very useful information explaining how to set up a Cholesterol testing service on Numarknet. The information can be found at Numark Cholesterol Screening Services .There are also useful free downloadable resources, forms, flowcharts, patient questionnaires etc to simplify running the service here.