What Does The Future Hold For Pharmacies?

Technology is making life easier in many ways, and more and more people are now shopping online for goods and services. Online stores quickly deliver to the door and this is much more convenient and cheaper than making trips downtown.

Privacy and Good Advice

As well as food, furniture, books and clothes, there are online pharmacies that now sell medication of all kinds – everything from weight-loss drugs to prescription medicines that have been recommended by physicians. In fact, many people are more comfortable using an online pharmacy rather than their local drugstore. Pharmacists are busy people and in a store they have to locate and dispense the correct medicine and may not have time to answer in detail the questions posed by customers.

Many people value the privacy of ordering online and the ability to consult a qualified pharmacist by telephone, which is toll free, or via online chat. They can then ask detailed questions about the medication they need and how the medicines might interact with other medications being taken. This is preferable to standing in line at a drugstore, perhaps right next to a nosy neighbor.

Customer Safety

Medical professionals also value the efficiency and accuracy of filling prescriptions online. Technology has helped online pharmacists to reduce the number of mistakes made – many use a computer image to double-check that the drugs they are supplying actually match the real thing. The best ones, such as Canadian Pharmacy, also ensure that all customer orders are checked and approved by qualified licensed pharmacists before being sent from their affiliated online pharmacy and/or international fulfillment center.

Canadian Pharmacy is an approved member of the International Pharmacy Association of British Columbia, the Canadian International Pharmacy Association (CIPA) and PharmacyChecker.com. These industry accreditation mean that their affiliated licensed pharmacies and international fulfillment centers are continuously monitored, as are their business practices, to ensure quality, safety and reliability.

Value for Money

Another reason why online pharmacies are becoming increasingly popular is that they can often provide better value for money than the local drugstore, on both branded and generic medications. Most carry insurance against damage or loss of any packages sent by mail and they all insist on valid, signed prescriptions from a doctor for prescription products. With the capacity to dispense up to 50,000 prescriptions per day, larger online pharmacies are able to make savings, and many pass these on to the customer.

Future prospects for online pharmacies are good. As a business they are easier and cheaper to operate than a physical store, requiring only storage space and call center staff as well as qualified pharmacists. From the customer’s point of view they are convenient, quick and relatively cheap to use. From the point of view of healthcare specialists issuing prescriptions, they are reliable and safe.

It may be that in the future every doctor will be able to prescribe medicines and communicate electronically with an online pharmacy, which will then deliver direct to the customer, speeding up the process of ordering and receiving medication even more.