It's All about the Care!

For as long as I can remember, I've been fascinated by business models, especially those of companies that develop innovative products and services to address consumer pain points. In the pharmacy world, we call these solutions "pain relievers."

Many of you have heard the story of how Reed Hastings grew frustrated with late fees and founded Netflix, thus solving a significant pain point. There are countless other examples: Uber and Lyft transformed transportation, DoorDash revolutionized food delivery, Spotify changed the music industry, and CrossFit reshaped the fitness world. These innovators developed products and services that provided utility to consumers and, in doing so, revolutionized entire markets.

In the aftermath, many companies have been left wondering what went wrong. Often, they clung to business models that were once successful but no longer met consumer demand. Blockbuster, Sears, shopping malls, Barnes & Noble, and Britannica Encyclopedias all failed to adapt their products and services and, as a result, perished.

This brings me to the pharmacy industry. The current pharmacy business model is not meeting consumer demand. In fact, I believe it's moving in the wrong direction. Too many patients are on incorrect medications, lack access to necessary treatments, or don't adhere to their prescribed regimens. The consequences are tragic: poor medication management claims over 125,000 lives and costs over $200 billion in avoidable healthcare expenses annually in the United States alone.

To make matters worse, we've introduced new barriers to medication access: incredibly high costs, prior authorizations, meaningless denials, and long wait times. The model is so broken that the drug distribution channel has become convoluted, with too many intermediaries taking their cut at each stage. And it seems like more players are added every year. We're moving in the wrong direction.

Fortunately, I work with a fantastic pharmacy team at Kettering Health that strives to make accessing medications as frictionless as possible. Navigating this ocean of challenges and predators is hard work, but we're seeing results. And I'm not just saying this as a team member but as a patient who's experienced their magic firsthand.

But as an industry, we can do better. As pharmacy leaders, we need to understand our patients better. This doesn't happen by sitting in our offices on Teams meetings. Great ideas don’t come from conference rooms. To generate ideas that will transform the market, we must engage with our patients. Listen to them. Find out what delights them, makes them cry, and scares them. We need to observe their behavior to understand what it reveals. We must also immerse ourselves in their experience because our problems rarely mirror those of our patients.

So, my challenge to my pharmacy colleagues is this: get to know your patients. Really get to know them. Only then can we use this insight to develop products and services that optimize care. Our patients deserve that. It's all about the care.