A group of entrepreneurs has developed a high-tech system that could revolutionize how Canadians obtain prescription drugs.
Their concept revolves around a kiosk that operates like a vending machine, but with the sophistication of an automated banking machine, using advanced robotics and technology to read prescriptions and dispense more than 150 commonly prescribed drugs. A video screen links a pharmacist to the patient.
If PCA Services Inc., an Oakville, Ont.-based company, realizes its vision, these machines could one day be a common sight in doctors' offices, emergency rooms and workplace clinics, and could do for the pharmaceutical industry what self-check-in kiosks have done for airlines, or ABMs for banks.
"Pharmacists have always been looking to spend more time counselling their patients," says Don Waugh, PCA Services co-founder and chief executive officer, adding that there's a shortage of people in the field, which requires extensive training. Many aboriginal and remote communities are particularly underserved, he said.
The machines would help free up pharmacists, allowing them to focus on counselling patients, "instead of checking out bread, milk and juice," added Peter Suma, co-founder and chief operating officer.
Pharmaceutical sales are big business. Shoppers Drug Mart Corp. reported last week that $972-million, or 48 per cent, of its first-quarter sales came from prescriptions.
PCA Services has just secured a deal with Toronto's Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre to test a preliminary version of its system, which it calls PharmaTrust, at the hospital's pharmacy. That deal, the better part of a year in the making, illustrates some of the hurdles the company must overcome.
"We worry about the erosion of pharmacy practice when we see some elements of our practice being taken over by technology," said Thomas Paton, Sunnybrook's director of pharmacy, who has been a pharmacist for 33 years and originally resisted the idea.
"There's going to be some fear, some skepticism about it," he said. "I'm expecting that I'm going to get calls that might say, 'How dare you participate in this?' But my view is that, in the early going, I think I would rather be part of this; it's going to be here whether I like it or not. Let me be part of that solution and work it so it's part of the tools that I can use to advance pharmacy practice to do the things we want to do."
Kym Anthony, a director and investor in PCA Services and former head of investment banking at DundeeWealth Inc., said "the health-care system needs adjustments, and this is one of those adjusting technologies that, if it rolls out properly, will provide a huge savings in the industry."
The company has worked with lawyers at Miller Thomson LLP to ensure that the concept complies with federal and provincial health-care laws.
"The regulations didn't contemplate this kind of technology or this kind of service," said Anthony de Fazekas of Miller Thomson.
"The regulatory framework in Canada is relatively complicated," he said. "They've had to do some work in making their business plan fit within that."
But, at this point, "there's nothing that we know of that stands in the way of them moving forward."
PCA Services is banking on the notion that potential benefits of its system, including patient convenience, lower rates of dispensing errors, reduced dispensing fees and more thorough electronic drug records, will smooth its path.
Soon, PCA Services hopes to have its machines in doctors' offices, operating under laws in many jurisdictions, including Ontario, that it believes give physicians the right to dispense drugs. Sunnybrook has interest in the so-called physician-dispense model, which could see machines sprinkled throughout the hospital.
"We are actively talking about it, seeing how we might be able to manage that," Mr. Paton said. "We thought we couldn't wait for that to happen."
PCA Services has also signed a deal with MCI Medical Clinics Inc., which will soon test a newer version of its system in a Toronto-area clinic.
The PharmaTrust system uses radio frequency identification (RFID), scales and video verification to ensure the proper prescription is being dispensed.
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