Major Drugstore Retailers Roll Out Patient-Focused Care Initiatives
By Hannah Ash, contributing writer
CVS Caremark Introduces New Technology Indicative of New Focus for Drugstores
The important information on prescription bottles can prove tricky for visually impaired customers to discern and new technology that caters to these customers has been released. CVS Caremark just announced it will be unrolling a new talking label bottle plan through ScripTalk. In January, Big Y pharmacies also made the move to offer ScripTalk’s talking labels to customers. This new channel of communication with customers comes in the wake of a push by drugstore retailers to implement technology and care initiatives to create better health outcomes.
Talking labels are an example of how pharmacies can leverage technology to focus on improved patient care and service. The ScripTalk Station is a simple interface through which pharmacists can communicate vital pharmaceutical information to their customers. These labels enable pharmacists to program prescription information into the label: customers can then scan the bottle via their tabletop reader to listen to information about their medications. The technology caters to the difficulties the visually impaired, blind and dyslexic populations face in accessing essential prescription medicine. Beyond helping convey essential information, talking labels eliminate a level of inconvenience and frustration for customers.
Customer-centric solutions such as ScriptTalk are indicative of a new trend in the pharmaceutical retailer industry. “Retail pharmacy is asserting itself in the patient-centered care model, providing more value-added services, as well as more consultative engagements with patients,” remarks Adam T. Vargulick, director of product management at VoicePort. In February, Walgreens opened an innovative patient-centered pharmacy in conjunction with the University of California - San Francisco. The pharmacy will be used as model for exploring ways to best reduce errors, eliminate drug interactions and facilitate greater fluidity for physician-pharmacist-patient communications. Just this month, Rite Aid announced its new Rite Aid Health Alliance program, which will work with the physicians of select patients to better manage their treatments. The program will include store-based health care coaches who will serve as care managers for participating customers.
A fundamental shift in how drugstore retailers function appears to be on the horizon. According to health sector capital venturist Ashley Ledbetter Dombkowski, PH.D, “We will also see more care move out of centralized institutions into alternate settings: walk-in clinics in drugstores and airports, self-administered at home lab tests, virtual house calls.”New retail and medical technology is paving the way for patient care to partly exit the medical office and introduce itself into more convenient locations, such as the drugstore.