A customer is looking for medication in a pharmacy.
Despite the healthcare industry’s constant evolution over the past 50 years, innovation in the retail and consumer pharmacy arena has been slightly more measured. The fundamental concept of patients ordering and receiving their medications in physical locations has remained relatively intact for decades. However, over the past ten years, this field has seen remarkable innovation and transformation.
The most important enabler of this change is technology.
At the most fundamental level, the Internet, coupled with the digitalization of retail pharmacies, has provided patients with easier ways to order their prescriptions and track the progress of their orders. Additionally, patients’ quality of life has seen a significant improvement thanks to the advent of digital prescriptions; especially with the integration of EMR systems, patients no longer need to carry paper prescriptions with them to the pharmacy. Instead, doctors can use EMR systems to send orders directly to a patient’s pharmacy.
In recent years, technological advancements and the consumer pharmaceutical space have become more intertwined and attempted to solve even more complex retail use cases. Pharmaceutical giants CVS and Walgreens have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to digitize their processes and pipelines, not only for customer-facing applications, but also to augment internal functions, including their procurement processes, supply chain management and workflow efficiency.
On the customer side, the focus on consumer engagement has never been greater. Karen Lynch, former CEO of CVS Health, commented on this phenomenon: “We are driving consumer connections and personal engagement using technology so people can be connected to their healthcare…we will be in communities, we will be at home and we will be connected digitally. because we have a duty to improve the overall cost, lower the cost, improve access, and improve the quality of the American health care system.
In line with the growing trend of traditional pharmacies turning to technology, non-traditional companies are also increasingly looking to disrupt the industry. Perhaps one of the most successful examples is Amazon. The company has spent hundreds of millions of dollars improving consumers’ pharmacy experience; in fact, I recently wrote on how the “Amazon effect” in the world of pharmacy will likely make instant access to medications the “new normal” for consumers – an expectation that traditional retailers are increasingly working to meet .
Other non-traditional players attempting to enter the space include Uberwhich has dedicated a service entirely to same-day delivery of prescription medications. For the millions of Americans who currently face transportation challenges in acquiring medications in a timely manner, this service provides the opportunity to alleviate lack of access. Similarly, other companies are pouring even more resources into solving the last-mile problem, focusing on faster, simpler ways to get medicines into the hands of patients. For example, Zipline partnered with the Mayo Clinic and other academic institutions to pilot drone drug delivery to patients’ homes. This capability opens up entirely new areas of possibility when it comes to providing rural and underserved populations with timely access to resources.
Despite rapid progress, work in this area is only just beginning. There is no doubt that as technological capabilities continue to grow at a meteoric pace, the world of consumer and retail pharmacy will evolve as well.