PEOPLES INVESTING $2 MIL. TO START PATIENT DRUG INFORMATION PAMPHLETS

Executive Summary

PEOPLES INVESTING $2 MIL. TO START PATIENT DRUG INFORMATION PAMPHLETS and support natl. advertising campaign in newspapers, radio, and television, the chain's Chairman Sheldon Fantle declared at an Oct. 3 press briefing to announce the new patient education program. The campaign, called "Help Your Health: You Can, We Can," is designed "to help consumers help themselves by bringing them vital information on health care," Fantle said. Six brochures have been developed, with more to be distributed subsequently, Fantle continued. The subjects addressed by the first six pamphlets are "Understanding Your Medications," antibiotics, antihistamines, tranquilizers, drugs in pregnancy, and home diagnostic test kits. Fantle added that the information in the pamphlets was developed with the assistance of FDA and the Natl. Council on Patient Information and Education. Help Your Health" is the third public health education campaign the chain has launched with the help of FDA, Fantle noted. Peoples distributed "over 5 mil. pamphlets" in their "Living with Aging" and "Spot It, Stop It" drug abuse campaigns. * The program also includes the reconfiguration of Peoples' pharmacy departments "to make the pharmacist more accessible to consumers," Fantle noted. Peoples, Lane, Lee, Reed, and Rea & Derick stores will be redesigned so that fewer barriers separate pharmacists from patients, he said. In addition, "consulting booths" are being installed "in the corner of the Rx room," where pharmacists and patients "can talk in privacy relative to the medication," Fantle said. Likening the concept to confessionals -- "the pharmacist sits on one side and the patient on the other" -- he added that Indianapollis-area stores had already been converted.