Pharmacies, More Than Just Points of Sale

“People need medicine, but it is still uncertain what the pharmacy’s role will be in an NHI environment,” says the company that since 2001 has been publishing the Medicines Review Report. “NHI will” Rademan expects that he can help provide some of that clarity. “We are the only company in South Africa that publishes on trends in South African medicine,” he adds. “We are a PBM (Pharmaceutical Benefit Management) company. We provide the ability for a funder to manage medicine, and provide instant access for members so they can walk into any pharmacy or any doctor without needing to pay cash. The insurance companies and funders know that any member can be attended to in a pharmacy or by a doctor, and the medicines would be supplied and funded electronically with no cash needed. Our role is double-fold: on one side we provide access, and on the other side, the management capability at the back end.” Essential to these capabilities are the operational efficiencies that underpin them. , says that automation solutions like the Gollmann Automated Dispensing Unit (ADU) that his company provides “are desperately needed in the pharmacy space, given the massive challenges that need to be addressed, e.g. the amount of time taken to dispense medicine, managing stock. Recently, a prominent pharmacy was in the news for dispensing expired medication—an indication that the monitoring of expiry dates is another pain point that needs to be adequately dealt with.”