Innovating Patient-Centred Pharmacy Care in Bangladesh: Adapting Australian Practices for 2026 Collaboration

Abstract

There has been a paradigm shift in global pharmacy practice, where the traditional dispensing role of pharmacies has been transformed into a patient-centered clinical care paradigm. An example of this is high-income countries, such as Australia, which have successfully incorporated pharmacists into multidisciplinary groups to monitor medication, chronic illnesses, and preventive healthcare. In Bangladesh, pharmacy practice is, however, still very much confined to commodification of medicine, therefore loss of optimality in medication usage, poor management of chronic ailments, and eruption of antimicrobial resistance. This paper is a proposal for an International Australia-Bangladesh partnership to modernise the Bangladeshi pharmacy practice in Bangladesh by the year 2026. Its foundation lies in four connected pillars: (1) the capacity building to prepare pharmacists to take on a clinical role; (2) policy and regulatory changes to institutionalise and broaden the responsibilities; (3) new service innovations facilitated by technology like tele pharmacy; and (4) implementation science to track the consequences and inform their expandability. The programme aims to promote medication safety, chronic disease management, prevent the misuse of antibiotics, and increase patient satisfaction, and simultaneously help better the greater health system, by using proven Australian innovations and adapting them to the unique situation in Bangladesh.