The "New" Pharmacy Industry

When I was growing up in the 90s (pharmacy school years), the notion of “Pharmacy Industry” indicated only one commerce: pharmaceutical manufacturers. In the last 25 years, with advancements in automation, technology and the complexities generated by electronic healthcare records, an entirely new “Pharmacy Industry” has formed. 

 

This new pharmacy industry does not manufacture, or most likely not even handle a single dose of a medication. This new industry provides automation, supplies, tools, kits, storage, expertise (consulting) and analytics to improve efficiency, accuracy, cost and performance in the world of pharmacy. These partners are critical to the profession of pharmacy as they allow us to focus on the core pharmacy function of caring for patients. 

 

With every transaction (patient counseling, order verification, dispensing, compounding a medication, administration, billing, audits, to name a few), data is created. Storing, sharing and processing this enormous amount of clinical and non-clinical data has enabled us to make more informed and operationally sound decisions to advance our departments, the profession of pharmacy and more importantly patient care. In the near future, our pharmacy decisions will be mostly data driven with clearly outlined and anticipated outcomes continuously improving operations, quality and safety.

 

It’s time we start referring to drug manufacturers as Pharmaceutical Manufacturers or Pharma and correctly categorize all the pharmacy hardware, software and service companies (collectively solution providers) as the “Pharmacy Industry.”

 

Here is an attempt to list a few examples of this “new” Pharmacy Industry:

 

                                              i.     Automation and robotics (retail and acute care setting) 

                                             ii.     Drug integrity

                                           iii.     Specialty pharmacy service providers

                                           iv.     Value-based care model

                                             v.     Population health management

                                           vi.     Pharmacy business and analytics

                                          vii.     Informatics

                                        viii.     Government, lobbying and policy

                                           ix.     Pharmacy organizations

                                             x.     Gene therapy, CAR-T

                                           xi.     Revenue cycle management

                                          xii.     Integration of pharmacoeconomics and value-based medicine with clinical decision making

                                        xiii.     Patient adherence tools

                                        xiv.     PBM and PBM audits

                                          xv.     Accreditations

                                        xvi.     Drug supply chain 

                                       xvii.     Point-of-care testing and chronic disease management

 

Arash Dabestani, PharmD, MHA, FASHP

Dean and Professor

Long Island University College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences