Pharmacy Technology

Pharmacy automation solutions supplier Innovation and the Watson Institute for Systems Excellence held an in-depth symposium on the role automation is playing in pharmacy operations. More than 60 students, Innovation executives and representatives from community pharmacy chains, pharmacy benefit management companies and mail-order facilities attended the two-day event earlier this month on the campus of Binghamton University. The symposium, which executives hope will become an annual event, kicked off with a welcome reception. 

The soon-to-open Binghamton University School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences will take the profession to a new level, founding dean Dr. Gloria Meredith told attendees at the joint Innovation/BU symposium on change management for pharmacy operations earlier this month.

“We're not going to be just another pharmacy school,” she said. “The idea is to create something unique; something that will impact the profession.”

Standing: Tim Weippert of Thrifty White Pharmacies, Craig Norman of H-E-B, Brandon Worth of Walmart, Khan Siddiqui of higi, Jeff Key of Pioneer Rx and Philecia Avery of Kroger. Seated: Guest moderator Chris DImos of McKesson, Rick Gates of Walgreens, Josh Flum of CVS Health, Frank Maione of PerceptiMed and Jocelyn Konrad of Rite Aid.

Unit shipments for wearable devices were expected to drive about $32 billion in revenue by 2019 — more than three times the $10 billion in revenue the market saw in 2013, according to a 2015 IHS Technology white paper on the wearables market. Beside the business applications IHS identified, it also focused on consumer possibilities in the wearables market — as fitness trackers, health data collectors and beyond.