Amazon’s Pharmacist

The Personal Pharmacist Theory

I recently wrote about what it would look like if Amazon had their own Pharmacy. Link to that article here. But, I wanted to get more into what I’d like to call “Amazon’s Pharmacist.” The crazy thing is, the pharmacist I’m describing could never actually be an employee of Amazon. Let me explain.

Advancing Tech

With technology advancing, the role of a pharmacist is going to look very different in a few years because of the commoditization of dispensing medications. Because of innovations in pharmacy dispensing and Amazon’s delivery capabilities, one day we are going to look back and think of how ridiculous it was that we actually put pills into a bottle with our own hands and then gave it directly to a patient present at the pharmacy.

But improvements in dispensing is only the beginning of automation. What about medication prescription verification? Currently, a major part of the pharmacist’s role in community pharmacy is to verify the information written on a prescription is what the patient will be receiving. However, it’s actually really easy to verify a prescription. When I say easy, I mean in terms of the actual act of verification, which in essence is just making sure words match. This is different from a clinical check, where a pharmacist ensures the patient can…