Bringing Pharmacy Care Home: A Smarter Model for Ageing Communities in Szeged

What if pharmacy care did not start at the counter, but at the front door?

In Szeged, Hungary, the agile pilot Gyógyszerész a Háznál (Pharmacist at Home) is testing a new way to support older residents — by bringing pharmacists directly into the home-care ecosystem. The initiative connects pharmacists, social caregivers, and digital tools to make medication use safer, more accessible, and better coordinated.

At a time when many communities are facing the combined pressures of ageing populations, rising care needs, and fragmented local services, this pilot offers a practical and scalable response.

How the pilot works

The model is simple, but powerful:

Pharmacists visit elderly residents at home, providing direct support where it is needed most
They work in coordination with social caregivers, who already assist residents in everyday life
Medication use can be monitored more safely under professional supervision
Prescription refills and medicine delivery become easier to organise
A dedicated digital platform, currently in development, will enable real-time collaboration between pharmacists and caregivers

Why it matters

The real innovation behind this pilot is not only the service itself, but the new community-based care model it introduces.

By integrating pharmacy services into wider home care, the initiative creates new opportunities for rural and community pharmacies to play a more active role in local wellbeing. It also shows how municipalities can use cross-sector collaboration and digital coordination to strengthen care services without having to build entirely new systems from scratch.

This is exactly the kind of smart, people-centred innovation cities and regions need as they adapt to demographic change.

A pilot with wider relevance

The Szeged pilot demonstrates how healthcare, social care, and digital innovation can come together in a way that is both practical and human-centred. Its relevance goes beyond one city or one country. For many municipalities across Europe, the challenge is the same: how to support older people more effectively while making local care systems more connected and resilient.

Gyógyszerész a Háznál shows one possible answer.