Prescriptions
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Amazon Pharmacy delivers discount prescriptions to Prime members
Amazon Pharmacy is an online pharmacy offering two-day shipping and deep discounts for Prime members.
Amazon Care is a new app-based health service for its employees
Amazon has unveiled Amazon Care, a new health service that offers employees virtual consultations with in-home follow-ups. According to the website, the services include an "in-app video visit with a doctor, nurse practioner or registered nurse... for advice, answers, diagnosis, treatment or referrals." Amazon Care can also send a nurse to visit the patient if any follow-up is required.
New York prescriptions go digital to combat opioid abuse
On March 27th, New York State residents will no longer need to decipher their doctor's terrible handwriting, thanks to a switch from paper to electronic prescriptions. The new phase is part of a 2012 law called I-Stop aimed at slowing the massive prescription medication addition problem. According to the state officials, the number of deaths related to Oxycodone, Hydrocodone and other opioid meds nearly quadrupled to 1,227 between 2004 and 2013.
PocketPharmacist for iOS now lets you refill Walgreen prescriptions
This is an idea I've thought would be useful for a long time, and now a developer has gone forth and brought it to life. The PocketPharmacist app (US$1.99) has been long appreciated for drug information and drug interaction data, and now has the ability to refill a Walgreens prescription right from the app. Walgreens also has a free app that does this, but without all of the helpful drug information. "People continue to become increasingly engaged with their mobile devices and use the technology to help make their day-to-day lives easier," said Abhi Dhar, Walgreens e-commerce chief technology officer. The new medication refill feature enables PocketPharmacist users to refill a Walgreens prescription within seconds. "PocketPharmacist is thrilled to offer iOS users both the convenience and ease of refilling their Walgreens prescriptions," said Michael Guren, founder and CEO of Danike, Inc. "We believe this adds to our goal of helping people better understand and manage their medications." The app takes no advertising from pharmaceutical companies, so the information is unbiased. The app covers a total of 1530 drug summaries, and all current FDA information. There is also an extensive database on drug interactions. PocketPharmacist is optimized for the iPhone 5 and requires iOS 5 or greater. %Gallery-177956%
Vitality GlowCaps smart pill bottle toppers now available on Amazon
Pill poppers rejoice! AT&T-connected Vitality GlowCaps are finally available on Amazon. The intelligent pill caps, which use flashing lights and audio reminders, as well as phone calls and SMS, to remind forgetful patients that it's down-the-hatch time, retail between $10 and $15 a month through a Vitality connectivity service plan. Details of GlowCap's functionality were still up in the air when we got our hands on one back in March, but it looks like AT&T and Vitality have ironed out all the smart Rx kinks. Basically, your pill bottle lights up and chimes when it's time for your meds. As soon as you open the bottle, adherence data is then sent via AT&T to Vitality, who then passes that data on to you, your doctor, and any other approved party, in the form of progress reports. They're also equipped to automatically refill your prescription when the bottle gets low. Considering you still remember what that little light means when it appears (and you don't have a penchant for over-medicating), GlowCap might just save your life. We've been using ours for about a month now, and still haven't kicked the bucket -- review coming soon.
Drug vending machines start trial in UK, allow awkward videophone conversations with your pharmacist
You've got to imagine the Japanese are green with envy right now, as the BBC report not one, but two different drug vending machines are being tested out under Her Majesty's watchful eye. The first of these experiments is run by supermarket chain Sainsbury's, which has installed a pair of drug dispenser machines in its stores. They identify users by their fingerprint or a unique number, demand PIN verification too, and then finally accept your prescription. Then -- and this is the really silly part -- a pharmacist comes along, picks up your prescription, fills it out, and deposits it in the machine for you to pick up. So it's impersonal and unnecessarily convoluted, great. PharmaTrust seems to have a slightly better idea with its videophone-equipped, ATM-style robo-vendor: it's intended to allow pharmacists to approve prescriptions off-site and out of usual working hours by letting them speak to you via videophone. It could in fact be a big benefit in more remote areas, depending on how patients take to it -- we'll know more when the trial starts up in participating hospitals this winter.
Printable prescription drugs heading to a pharmacy near you?
If researchers at the University of Leeds, Durham University, and GlaxoSmithKline have their way, some drugs will be custom printed for you at the pharmacy in the near future. Prescription drugs are usually about 99.9 percent filler and 0.1 percent actual medication, so the new method they're working on would involve printing the active drug onto the surface of a pill in the pharmacy -- meaning that drugs could be customized for each person, and multiple drugs could potentially be included in one pill. The process currently only works with about one percent of prescriptions on the market, but they're moving toward expansion in the near future.
UK trial allows patients to book doctor visits via remote
Amidst the recent boom in home healthcare gizmos that are enabling the elderly to better care for themselves, it's no surprise to see a trial hit the UK which allows patients to book GP appointments via their TV. The system was devised by EMIS, and was initially available "through the Looking Local portal on the interactive menus on Sky, cable, and Freeview boxes with a modem or broadband connection." Additionally, users could access the menu via WAP-enabled mobile phones, and customers in participating areas were able to "access information from the doctor's receptionist along with a password which allowed them to log in to the system." Results from the pilot program included fewer missed appointments and less time spent chatting with the ill over the phone, but we don't foresee any of these productivity savings being passed along to the consumer in the form of pounds and pence.
Paper checks out of hospital, ePrescription takes its place
Seems as though paper has found its way into another battle -- the National ePrescribing Patient Safety Initiative wants to replace our old tree-based friend with a presumably much safer Web-based system. Rather than continually risking the lives of millions of people by making pharmacists decipher doctors' illegible handwriting, prescriptions will are entered into a website, hopefully leaving less room for harmful and fatal errors. It's amazing that only "one fifth of U.S. doctors" use this kind of electronic system; by now you would think the robots that have invaded hospitals would be the ones doling out the happy pills, but we guess that's a battle left for another day. On the plus side, hackers will now have endless access to the uppers they need for monitoring their botnets around the clock.
