Electronic Health Reporter

By Natalie Tkachenko, healthcare software solutions consultant, NIX United.

The increasing number of online pharmacy retailers emphasize growing consumer inquiry for address delivery. More and more polls show that the cost of such delivery is the greatest concern for both consumers and suppliers.

Such trends have resulted in an expansion of mobile apps usage for prescription drugs. The chronic conditions patients like diabetes, heart, kidney or liver diseases, or HIV infections rely on pharmacy services that provide continuous prescriptions renewals and deliver to patients’ homes.

Market Overview of Pharmacy Delivery Apps

In 2023, we expect the pharmacy delivery market to reach 6.4% CAGR for the forecast period up to 1,694.7 billion dollars. Besides the growth of chronic diseases patients that require ongoing medicine supply, there are such major factors as technological progress and new products release.

Especially since the beginning of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic boosted medicine delivery needs to reach an unprecedented level. Implementing such an opportunity into your online drugs retailer may force the business growth. Furthermore, the pharmacy delivery applications must provide the right information about the medicine and accurately distinguish drugs.

In 2021, online pharmacy retailers are a great solution to make medicine available to patients while maintaining social distance.

Advantages of Pharmacy Delivery Services

There is a study that shows that patients with chronic diseases that order medicine from online retailers show better adherence than those who buy them in local pharmacies. One of the reasons for such behavior may lay in that fewer patients with low economic status may order from online retailers. and have their medication delivered.

Also, the process of treatment is made much easier by pre-sorted medicine delivered to the door. Added instruction on how to properly take medicine by hours or days facilitates the process of treatment.

Among the benefits of pharmacy delivery apps is the possibility to set the convenient time of delivery. It may come in handy for patients that despite disease have a busy lifestyle.

That also could be a plus for elder people for whom it is hard to wait in a line at a drugstore. A courier may deliver medicine when the nursemaid will be available to accept it.

Advanced technologies make sure that you receive the precise drugs and dosages. Thus, the risk of adverse effects and hospitalization can be lowered. Whereas wrong medication puts dying from wrong treatment in 8th place among causes of death in the U.S. According to the study, the error rate for delivering medicines to pharmacies was about 1 for every 50 prescriptions written (or 1.72%), the error rate for delivering medicines was less than 1 for every 1000 prescriptions (or only 0.075%).

Prescribed medicine in the U.S., unfortunately, has one of the largest prices in the world’s medicine market. The minimum price of drugs in America is 67 times higher than in the U.K. and the maximum price is 33 times higher than in Japan.Individual drug treatment programs allow you to save money and to pay only for the drugs you are actually using, and you may be less likely to face the cost of taking the wrong drugs.

Summing up, the advantages of simple drug adherence, better accuracy, and lower costs, home delivery is a great way to control the cost of healthcare in the long run.

Must-have Features for Pharmacy Delivery App

We want to make a list of basic required features that are must for this kind of application. If you have an opportunity to add nice-to-have features, it will guarantee prompt success of your app and growth of your business.

1. Instruction. The pharmacy app should have all the needed info for patients, including medicine consumption details and side effects, nice to have medication pre-packaged in the right dosages, and guidelines that help consumers take their medicine in proper ways.2. Prescription. The app must allow consumers to upload doctor’s prescriptions in order to let them order medicine easily.3. Request. Gives customers an opportunity to ask for a medicine which is currently not available.4. Online Chat. Consumers might need advice any time of the day, so make sure your app has a support team to help with making orders, providing more information about products and may help if the patient needs a pharmacist.

   5. Substitutes. The app needs to provide patients with alternative medicine so that they can make a purchase in case of the absence of their prescribed medication.

   6. Reviews. This function will help the client build trust and order the medicine without hesitation, which of the suppliers is better.

Conclusion

Keeping in mind the pandemic situation and the development of technologies in every area of today’s life, pharmacy delivery service is going to change the game. To get the prescribed medicine regularly and without interactions, patients will rely on their mobile apps more than on the nearest pharmacy store. Creation of such a mobile app requires technical expertise along with medical support. When these services trump the convenience of mail-order delivery, be sure you choose an app provider thoughtfully. And if you still don’t plan to choose the one — it’s time to think about an app estimation at least.