The pharmacy of the future is people focused and serviced by robots

A lot has happened in the pharmaceutical business since pharmacists were manufacturing medicine in the basement only a few decades ago. The modern pharmacy is automated and many of the manual procedures are now being handled by robots, providing capacity to complement fewer practitioners and offer simple medical services to patients.

Only 25 years ago drugs, lotions and more were manufactured locally at the pharmacy. Today almost all medication is made by the pharmaceutical industry, delivering everything in small packages that need to be handled instead. The Apostore A3000 is a perfectly designed logistics robot that enables you to keep complete track of all your inventory according to current law and requirements.

Pharmacist Jakob Tjelum is the owner of three pharmacies, two of which has a robot to accommodate his modern business strategy. From his pharmacy in Friheden, Hvidovre he services Doctors, Veterinarians and private hospitals, and customers are ordering their medicine online in a self-developed and mobile responsive online shop.

The profit of pharmaceuticals has declined significantly in just a few years. According to Jakob Tjelum the robot is a fantastic tool to process many customer transactions and make it a more efficient and positive experience even for the customer.

Break-ins are no longer attractive

There is a high demand for medications such Viagra and strong prescription painkillers on the black market, making it attractive for criminals to break in to pharmacies and steel drugs such as these.

Prior to the installation of the Apostore robot the criminals would somehow know exactly where to find the specific drugs. But for the untrained eye, there is absolutely no logic to how items are stocked. So today, looking for a specific drug to steal would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. This has totally eliminated all break ins at the pharmacy.

Advancing services requires more robots

A decreasing number of practitioners creates new business opportunities for the pharmacy. The development points in the direction of pharmacies offering a variety of services that would normally be performed by a general practitioner such as vaccines, blood samples and similar services.

To still be able to keep up the efficiency Jakob Tjelum has already prepared the A3000 with an extra slide to supply a 24/7 self-service counter. This is to be installed on the outside of the pharmacy and will be especially helpful for those who need to buy medicine outside regular opening hours, and it will also ease the pressure on the staff as they already have many customer transactions every day.

At one of his other pharmacies Jacob Tjelum has installed the Apostore Cube+. What’s special about the Cube+ is that it is specially designed to provide a high level of efficiency at smaller pharmacies with less space and many small customer transactions.