PHARMACY | TECHNOLOGY & AUTOMATION
Future of the Pharmacy Pharmacy tech and automation experts share their insights on the industry as it emerges from the pandemic By Sandra Levy
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ho helps the helpers? As the end of the COVID19 pandemic is beginning to come into view, pharmacists are among the healthcare providers — alongside doctors, nurses and first responders — who have played a critical role in the country’s response. Despite a health crisis of epic proportion, pharmacists met their clinical responsibilities and quickly pivoted to adopt new roles — all while filling a deluge of prescriptions, testing patients for COVID-19 and, ultimately, vaccinating people against the virus. One of the key ways pharmacies met the demands of the new environment was by relying more heavily on automation and technology. Within the pharmacy tech and automation sector, companies have continued to crank out new products and services to enable pharmacies to maintain their focus on patient care. Drug Store News spoke with executives from leading pharmacy technology and automation companies to discuss how they are helping their partners achieve their business goals and how they view the future of the industry. Here’s what they had to say.
Adheris Health
“We can ensure that important resources are making it into the hands of patients, even in chaotic times, to ensure patients have the stability and support they need to stay with their treatment plan.” — Jim Rotsart, executive vice president, client services, Adheris Health Jim Rotsart: Adheris Health evolved to address this new reality by transforming and individualizing patient health-and-wellness engagement for our partners. We collaborated with our partners to provide patients with important information about public services and health information, strengthening the connection between pharmacy and the patient, and enabling pharmacists to have more time to focus on providing quality, individualized patient care.
DSN: Why are your offerings beneficial to your customers and their patients? JR: Our offerings are multimodal, enabling us to deliver critical patient support communications, such as medication education, financial savings and reminders, regardless of how patients prefer to receive their prescription or which intersection of care they are currently navigating. We can ensure that important resources are making it into the hands of patients, even in chaotic times, to ensure patients have the stability and support they need to stay with their treatment plan, which is a challenge even in the best of times.
Jim Rotsart, executive vice president, client services
DSN: How do you view the future of pharmacy? JR: In the near future, we expect a significant
Drug Store News: How are you helping customers/pharmacy retailers as they seek to move forward amid the pandemic and post pandemic?
deepening of technology that connects all market participants. There is a huge untapped potential in the pharmacy sector to close the gap and connect all necessary stakeholders, including prescribers, pharma,
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health plans, labs, suppliers, delivery services and the list goes on. Adheris Health’s comprehensive patient management solution helps to close this gap. Our complementary and flexible platform for stakeholders in the intersection of pharmacy, pharmaceutical, medical, payer and other related sectors connects directly to the patient and simplifies the flow.
Bavis Drive-Thru
Charles Brown, president and CEO DSN: How are you helping customers/pharmacy retailers as they seek to move forward amid the pandemic and post pandemic? Charles Bowen: At Bavis Drive-Thru, we are in a continual process of helping pharmacies — established and new — update and expand their drive-thru capabilities. Indeed, the surge in demand shows quite clearly that customers are depending heavily on their local pharmacies to supply necessary medications, comfort and consulting, which is vitally important to patient well-being. We are helping to strengthen the bond between pharmacy retailers and their
June 2021 DRUGSTORENEWS.COM
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