Q&A: Elsevier’s Anderson on how data can help pharmacies succeed

Drug Store News: Tell us about Elsevier and what your company does.
Trygve Anderson: Elsevier is a global analytics business leading the way in advancing science, technology and health. We help our customers make better decisions, deliver better care, and combine content with technology, supported by operational efficiency, to turn information into actionable knowledge.

Our objective is to help customers advance science and improve health care by providing world-class content, analytics and decision tools that enable them to make critical decisions, enhance productivity and improve outcomes.

Our drug information products include: 

• Clinical Pharmacology powered by ClinicalKey, a source for current, accurate, clinically relevant drug information;
• Gold Standard Drug Database, which enables intelligent drug data decisions;
• Gold Standard Drug Database (Pricing), an integrated data deliverable to support and address business intelligence needs;
• ProspectoRx, which offers real-time pricing analysis and query builder to facilitate ad hoc pricing analysis; and
• Predictive Acquisition Cost, which provides a data science-based acquisition cost to augment business analytics capabilities.

DSN: How do you interact with retailers and help them with sales and profits?
TA: We empower retail pharmacy and other stakeholders by delivering the fastest and most accurate drug information content in the industry to support medication and drug data decision-making. Our solutions help improve operational, IT and financial performance. 

DSN: How is Covid-19 impacting your team and how is the company reacting?
TA: Elsevier understands that everyone in the healthcare industry is addressing the COVID-19 situation both professionally and personally, and our hearts and thoughts go out to everyone affected by the virus and those working on the front line. 

Our dedicated staff is proving itself resilient and innovative in keeping information on the pandemic current, accurate and available. We continue to look for additional ways we can support clinicians during this extraordinarily difficult time.

Elsevier created and launched the Novel Coronavirus Information Center. This site, which is a public repository of relevant Elsevier and non-Elsevier content for clinicians and other stakeholders, has been made available in an open-access format. The site includes more than 20,000 articles and many prominent journal articles available on the resource center before they have been published in the journals. To learn more, listen to our podcast, Drug Information of the frontline of the COVID-19 pandemic, at: elsevier.com/di-podcast-dsn. 

DSN: Can you tell us more about the importance of drug data evaluation? How does that help retailers?
TA: Retail pharmacies depend on drug data to maximize efficiency while ensuring a seamless data transmission to optimize speed and accuracy simultaneously, and to strengthen decision-making capabilities. While it’s common to assume all drug databases are alike, evaluating the impact of your drug data can yield significant business value.

In order for retail pharmacy and other stakeholders to maximize the utility of their drug data, they need to challenge the assumption that their current data is as accurate and as timely as it should be. Stakeholders are utilizing benchmarking practices, such as adding a second database to establish an objective baseline state. By analyzing data at the point of reception, retailers are in a much better position to evaluate accuracy — allowing them to assess the downstream impacts on IT and business operations. From there, management can deliver significant business value by adjusting operations accordingly.

Our customers understand the importance of anchoring operations around the most current data in the market and leveraging adaptive technology to avoid the burden of manual updates, delays in receiving data, and accuracy issues. 

Through True Daily Updates, Elsevier delivers drug information when it is needed. Every day, including weekends and holidays, Elsevier updates its drug information — clinical and patient safety data, drug pricing, and images — encompassing all content. True Daily Updates reflect the work we do, every day of the year, to supply the most current and accurate drug information available.