Is your pharmacy ready for the digital acceleration?

Remote consultancies, medical reports sent by email, online bookings: technological innovation applied to the world of pharmacy has a great potential and, after the epidemic climax, is still here to represent the future.

Living with distances all around is not easy: social lockdown has made us understand how hard isolation is. No more family reunions, evenings with friends, free travels. However, the period showed us how the IT connectivity can make us live all in connection. In spite of the Covid we could:

• Having daily lessons from home as schools were closed,
• Purchasing online from shops with down rolling shutters,
• Working away from our offices…
• ….and getting medical treatment by remote!

It is not about replacing classrooms, retail areas and hospitals, but having new and strong opportunities to work in conjunction with them.

Advantages of Telemedicine

World Health Organization was recommending since the 27th of February to “assess the use of telemedicine to cope with the suspected cases of Covid-19” in order to avoid the affected people could be accessing hospital premises.

Pandemics, in accordance to a study by Grand View Research, “has given rise to an increase of demand of telemedicine solutions”.

Furthermore, the potential of remote visits and consultations goes far beyond the Corona-virus: the health emergency has not created but accelerated an ongoing trend. And according to the Grand View Research, the telemedicine market should be worth approximately 155 billion of dollars by the year 2027. And the update estimates a growth at 15% a year.

This kind of solutions has been supported by different factors:

• The need to monitor pathologies such as heart problems and diabetes;
• A world population older and older;
• The chance to rely on more and more advanced digital instruments;
• The need of keeping up with the social distancing.

The benefits (estimated and in some cases already accomplished) are clear: if medical visits traveled via display and mail, there would be less people to withdraw their reports, a time saving for doctors and patients, reduction of health premises overcrowding and hospitalizations, analyses to be done by remote for disable patients.

From pharmacy video-consulting to medicines door-to-door

In accordance to a study by the “Osservatorio del Politecnico di Milano” titled Digital Innovation in the Health Industry and published in 2018, over eight patients out of ten prefer paying and withdraw medical reports personally.  This is a behavior coming as a result of habits. However, it is not for free. If 80% of patients withdrew their reports online, there would be a saving of 5 billion of Euro per year.

This is so without mention the impact of telemedicine in itself, which is including also, but not only, visits by remote. It is not just a money-matter: when we talk about “saving”, we mean a greater efficiency and, at a time of Covid, safety.

This is why many pharmacies are changing their approach and their footage to provide their clients with solutions technologically advanced in order to improve services and safety protocols.

Pharmacists, beside a network of doctors in agreement with them, offer also video-consultancies on symptoms and queries upon the Covid-19 or other pathologies.

Video-tutorials and informational forms can give any patient better feedback upon legal framework to refer to and clarify all the rules to prevent the infection to spread through. 

Medicines can be delivered at own’s place or stored within special “points for pharmaceutical withdrawal” (locker concept). Clients can carry out PCR swabs or serological test quickly by filling all the information BEFORE accessing the pharmacy.

The Application Book in Pharma enables in fact not only to book services or medicines, but also to get health data in real time, and the possibility to either receive on-line support or book the same directly at the pharmacy premises.

The world’s first clinic entirely virtual was opened in 2015