Community Pharmacists’ Strategies in Greece: An Assessment of the Policy Environment and the Mapping of Key Players

Abstract

The aim of the study was to form and assess the pharmacists’ strategies in Greece, by analyzing the policy environment and identifying the role of the key players-stakeholders. For collecting and organizing important information about the pharmacists’ policy, the PolicyMaker’s computerized version of political mapping was used, serving as a database for assessments of the policy’s content, the major players, the power and policy positions of key players, the interests of different players, and the networks and coalitions that connect the players. As the research findings show, the initially expected impact of the pharmacists’ policy proved to be very optimistic in most of the implemented strategies, as the majority of the strategies have worsened or minimized their success ratio throughout the time in study. Concluding, either the initially set strategies were at the wrong direction or the actions taken to implement them were inappropriate. Moreover, one can suggest that the shifting ability in both the position and the power of the most key players were over-estimated, while they under-estimated the impact of troika-constitutions meddling in the pharmaceutical policymaking and in the health sector cost-containment measures imposing.