Why Is Pharmacy So Important For Healthcare Communications?

I’ve talked about pieces of this before, but I really believe that pharmacy is the cornerstone of a successful healthcare communication strategy.

Pharmacy is the most used benefit.  On average people have over 12 pharmacy claims per year.  And, if you take out the people that don’t have any, the number rises to around 20 pharmacy claims per year.

That’s 20 opportunities to intervene at a logical event and educate the patient about their condition, talk to them about saving money, stress the importance of adherence, capture feedback from them, drive them to take an action, etc.

Additionally, pharmacy is a very tangible event that consumers can control.  They get to choose (in most cases) their pharmacy – retail, mail, specialty.  They can talk with physicians about the options – generics versus branded.  It’s a space with lots of DTC (direct-to-consumer) information.

I don’t think most of us (even those in the healthcare field) would feel as open to debating one surgery versus another type or talking about the quality differences between one location and another.  The data’s not as accessible and therefore we’re more dependent upon the system to drive us to good decisions.