While there are many similarities between retail pharmacies and other retail businesses, two key factors provide a unique opportunity to improve operations and financial efficiency, in turn enabling better patient outcomes. The ability to develop close relationships with other players in the health care industry value chain, and the opportunity to utilize relevant data in
WOONSOCKET, R.I. — As Larry Merlo sees things, health care delivery in the United States is a tale of two incompatible models, a costly, inefficient one rooted in the past, and another focused on a future of increased patient access, improved outcomes and lower costs. “At the moment, it’s as if we have two health
Can retail pharmacies beat other players to patient intimacy? Many pharmacy retailers understand that big data can improve business operations, enabling intimate consumer engagement and thereby driving bigger baskets and more door turns, along with healthier customers and margins. They see impacts almost completely confined to the income statement. Too few grasp the strategic ability
Are we seeing the first early “green shoots” of a new industry disruptor? Possibly. Big Pharma has started experimenting with direct-to-consumer models to fill prescriptions, effectively circumventing the retail pharmacy. Is the position of neighborhood pharmacies in today’s delivery system secure, or could the pharmacy suffer the same fate as the corner bookstore, replaced by
