Technology in Pharmacy Business with Scott Carpenter

Medmate Prescription Delivery within 60minutes

November 18, 2021

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In this episode of the Pharmacy View Podcast, Host Scott Carpenter, EVBC is joined by Dr. Ganesh Naidoo,Co-founder and CEO at Medmate, a conformant software product for e-prescribing that lets the user access over 1000 pharmacies across Australia at the click of a button.

While over the last year and half of all businesses have been increasingly turning to the use of technology, Medmate’s humble beginnings go back to Ganesh’s years of being a general practitioner where everyday he’d come home, order a pizza from Uber Eats at the click of a button, have it delivered to his doorsteps in under 20 minutes, and wonder if something like that were possible in the pharmaceutical and medical field, at large. ‘Medmate’ was the solution that he and his friends envisioned. Not undermining the importance of face-to-face counsel, he emphasizes that Medmate makes access to medication easy for those who cannot, owing to any number of reasons, go to a brick-and-mortar store to collect their scripts.

Recounting how business wasn’t really taught in med schools, he recounts his own story of having developed a medical center with his wife and of having used his years of experience in trying to help other independent business owners achieve the efficiency by consolidating clinics together and providing them with operating services that would make their businesses more modern, streamlined, and efficient.

Ganesh believes that each order has a story behind it and he wants to tell some of those stories – of patients in isolation and hotel quarantine getting vital medication in 60 minutes; of family members ordering medication for their loved ones living in the other side of the country by using the app, among others. To him, opportunities for Medmate are aplenty, yet, there are these challenges that would have to be overcome:

Educating customers, doctors and pharmacists about the availability of the technology
Educating them that Medmate is a solution, particularly for tele health
Being able to scale up the service
Ensuring there are no delays in delivery
Educating pharmacists that online customers are just as important as face-to-face customers
Emphasising that communication throughout the process is paramount to success

Medmate is available to any pharmacy and the onboarding process can be set up by filling in an online questionnaire, be contacted by someone from the team and have a customized set-up for the pharmacy within 24 hours.

Topics Covered

Inception of Medmate
Integration of Technology into the Pharmaceutical Business
Promise to the Customers
Challenges for Medmate
Importance of Communication
Customer Service for Online Customers
How to Use Medmate for your Business

Key Quotes (Time Stamps)

“There’s no doubt that the technology we’ve developed has become vitally important for Australians in the last twelve months or so.” (1:32 – 1:41)

“Why can’t it be as simple for patients to get the medications they need when they need them?” (2:54 – 3:00)

“One of the things that we’ve been doing over the last couple of years is: working really closely with the Australian government around the rollout of electronic prescription technology.” (6:10 – 6:19)

“Australians all over the country really value the convenience.” (8:04 – 8:07)

“There have been twenty-three million electronic prescriptions issued to date and the growth of these scripts is exponential.” (10:10 – 10:17)

“Our promise to the customer is: we will get that medicine to you in 60 minutes.” (13:29 – 13:33)

“These online customers are just as important as your face-to-face customers and we need to treat them the same way.” (16:09 – 16:17)

“Just to think about Medmate as a tool to digitally enable your pharmacy, so, just overnight, you can turn your brick-and-mortar store into an e-commerce powered superstore.” (21:51 – 22:00)

“We just see a world, not too far away, where when you go to a doctor everything happens electronically, everything happens instantly, there is no more pieces of paper floating around, and it is really easy for patients to navigate the system.” (26:36 – 26:47)

Social Media Clips (Time Stamps)