The Future of Retail Pharmacy: Caring for the Whole Patient

In this interview from the National Association of Chain Drug Store's (NACDS) Total Store Expo, Laura Davis Taylor and Ed King, Co-founders of the High Street Collective, share what they think retail pharmacy will need to look like in the future to stay relevant.

Ed King

You know, if you think about 5-10 years from now, what is the direction we can go, especially as it relates to health care? What is the sentiment that people have when they say 'hospitals', or 'doc-in-the-box'? Sterile, I want to get in and out as quickly as possible. What if we created a destination that was lush, that had aromatherapy, that had all of the holistic things, as well as the pharma things that were combined into one thing to more promote overall health, and its a place that people would want to go, and want to hangout, and want to connect with people like themselves, rather than the hospitals or the doc-in-the-box that they just want to get in and out as soon as they can.

Laura Davis Taylor

Prevention and Incentives is also important. As more and more people burden the health care system with cost of issues, we're seeing a need for people to incentivize people to make healthy choices. To tie that to, we've seen some of examples of people tieing that to their loyalty program. There's also the opportuntiy for some of the more natural medicines and natural solutions to come in with the pharma, so that that trend has a place to really bloom. We know that there are certain things you can do to prevent having to get on a pharma, but once you're on one, there are things that can help you get off of them as well. It's more of a holistic conversation where both sides of things are balanced, and again the person in the middle is that trusted advisor.

For more content from the NACDS Total Store Expo, visit our Conference Coverage web page.