Opportunities for health care from the internet and
e-pharmacies
The internet is a part of everyday life, but pharmacists
have to remember that it is a tool and not a business. That was the message
given to participants in a symposium entitled “The internet and its implications
for pharmacy” on September 4 by Dr Douglas Long, vice-president for industry
relations, IMS Healthcare, New Jersey, United States. He said that pharmacists
wishing to set up business websites should make sure that these were extensions
of their “bricks and mortar” businesses.
Although he was speaking from a United States perspective,
Dr Long said that pharmacists in other countries could use similar strategies
to market their websites.
It was important to consider that it was the “bricks
and mortar” pharmacy that needed to be marketed. Indeed, a pharmacy website
was an inexpensive advertising vehicle for the services that the pharmacy
had to offer. It could also be considered an important new sales channel
which was “waiting for a breakthrough”, since internet users still had
concerns about security and privacy.
Pharmacy websites needed to concentrate on the strengths
of the phar-macy itself, namely, the managed care contracts it held, how
fast it delivered medicines, what disease areas it specialised in and
the individual strengths of its staff.
Ways to market the website itself included in-store
and e-mail marketing. In-store marketing meant making sure that the website
address was on the pharmacy’s bags and receipts and on staff name
badges. E-mail marketing meant placing banner advertisements on others’
websites, sending out e-mail newsletters and listing key words on search
engines.
Consumer needs
There were several things that consumers wanted
from pharmacy websites.
Dr Long referred to a survey which had shown that
what consumers desired most was that they should be able to have their
prescriptions filled via an e-pharmacy. The second most important desire
was that consumers wanted to have repeat prescriptions dealt with.
Other needs were that dispensed medicines could
be delivered by mail or by messenger, that consumers should be able to
track the progress of their prescriptions and that e-mail reminders of
when prescriptions were due to be refilled were sent. Consumers also wanted
to be able to access health information.
Dr Long gave an outline of a survey of health on
the internet in the US. There were over 17,000 sites available for surfing
by “health seekers”, ie, the 52 million people who had sought health information
on the web. Of these, 47 per cent said that online material had influenced
decisions about their treatment and care. However, there were concerns
about privacy. Many health site users were worried that their medical
insurers might change their coverage if they were able to see what sort
of sites they were accessing and information they were looking at.
As far as physicians were concerned, 90 per cent
of them used the internet, 61 per cent daily; 13 per cent communicated
directly with their patients by e-mail. More said that they would if security
and privacy could be guaranteed.
One thing pharmacists should remember was that “cyberspace
is teenspace”, Dr Long said. Some 73 per cent of American teenagers used
the internet, and that was an opportunity for pharmacy in the future.
An opportunity for today was the “silver surfers”: the number of people
aged 55 to 64 years using the internet grew by 20 per cent in the past
six months, he said. That age group represented 12 per cent of the US
population and accounted for a quarter of health care spending.
The theme of internet opportunities for pharmacists
was expanded upon by Dr Bart Hameter, of the European Association of Mail
Services Pharmacies, the Netherlands. Again, these related to what those
other than pharmacists wanted from health-related information and communications
technology.
Doctors thought that information technology was
a positive influence in their professional lives. Most believed that it
was good for practice management.
Consumers wanted online information, and the emergence
of “internet printout syndrome”, where patients appeared in pharmacies
armed with papers on health conditions downloaded from the internet, was
an area where pharmacists could help in sifting through that information.
Other things that consumers wanted were to be able to e-mail their doctors
and to be able to carry out health tests on the internet.
The key to the future of health care on the internet
was “connectivity”, said Dr Hameter. There were three types of connectivity:
administrative, financial and clinical. Administrative connectivity involved
processing invoices, tracking orders and scheduling doctors’ appointments.
Financial connectivity involved paying and billing online. The most important
was clinical connectivity. Through clinical connectivity there should
be sharing of diagnostic and treatment data, collaborative diagnoses in
real time, and the ability to track treatment progress online.
As far as European countries were concerned, Dr
Hameter believed that the implementation of such connectivity in the United
Kingdom would be eased because it had a single health authority in the
form of the National Health Service. In Germany, it was being pushed ahead
because of that country’s large economy and huge health care costs. It
was also appearing in the Netherlands and Switzerland.
However, there were problems. Setting up e-pharmacies
was not allowed in all European countries. This meant that there was regular
cross-border traffic, in spite of the fact that often dispensing of “foreign”
drugs was not allowed. Another problem was that unique identification
of patients with regard to electronic data exchange among health care
professionals was often problematic.
Dr Hameter referred to a survey carried out in Europe
earlier this year. That survey had concluded that EU legislation would
favour online sales of prescription medicines, that pharmaceutical companies
would have to establish stronger links with physicians and that the EU
should set standards on sharing health care data, including patient records
and treatment histories.
Concluding, he said that the internet also offered
the opportunity for online clinical trials to be set up as long as security
of data exchange could be guaranteed. Such trials could result in lower
research and development costs for pharmaceutical companies and shorter
times to market for new drugs.
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