Show Watch

We have all heard the expression “knowledge is power.” Conversely, it also is true that what you don’t know can hurt you. The good news is that it’s not hard to find out what your rivals are up to and outpace them if you can connect with the right sources and utilize proven solutions.

In an effort to better understand the workflow dynamics between buyers and sellers and the common pitfalls and opportunities inherent to the buying process, ECRM recently conducted an online study of more than 5,000 retailers and vendors, over a two-week period.

While it was encouraging to find that, in general, there is good alignment between retailers and suppliers, the findings suggest that plenty of room still exists for the relationship to improve. 

What follows are the top seven takeaways from the research.

OLYMPIA, Wash. — The retail pharmacy industry is pursuing legal action against Washington state over a “substantively and procedurally flawed” rule  that would pay pharmacies below the actual cost to dispense Medicaid prescriptions.

The National Association of Chain Drug Stores joined the Washington State Pharmacy Association and the National Community Pharmacists Association in preventing a rule that would jeopardize patient access to their medications, the associations said.

Genoa, a QoL healthcare company, has put mental health care at the center of its business model — almost all of its 357 locations are located within community mental health centers in 42 states and the District of Columbia, and its telepsychiatry services serve 24 states. In a recent study published by the Journal of Managed Care Pharmacy, patients who had their prescriptions filled at a Genoa on-site pharmacy on-site at their community mental health center had adherence rates of 96%, with a 40 % lower rate of behavioral health related hospitalizations than the control group.

We’ve heard a lot lately about fake news. Much of the talk is about false and deceptive stories invading the Internet and other platforms.

There’s another phenomenon that I call “almost-fake,” which also relates to news and information, specifically about health. In many ways it’s even more challenging, especially for health practitioners and retailers.

I define almost-fake as health information that isn’t based on science.

“Sales reps prioritize a sales agenda over solving a customer’s problem. If organizations don’t change, 1 million business-to-business salespeople will lose their jobs to self-service e-commerce by 2020.”
—Forester Research

Drug Store News this summer spoke to three Good Neighbor Pharmacy owners as part of its coverage of AmerisourceBergen ThoughtSpot 2016. In these exclusive interviews, independent pharmacists shared changes implemented in their pharmacy to expand patient care and increase front-end profitability, the importance of customer service and the role of the independent pharmacist in the community.

At this year’s Good Neighbor Pharmacy’s ThoughtSpot conference, there were a lot of takeaways from the show that pharmacists can implement immediately upon returning to work. There was a new Innovation and Technology Showcase on the show floor this year. AmerisourceBergen announced its plan to launch a state-of-the-art ordering system called ABC Order, which will be available to customers in 2017.