Amazon Pharmacy has launched a service for the delivery of goods using drones on the territory of the US state of Texas.
The e-commerce giant published a press release last Wednesday, October 18, which contains information that the company’s customers living in College Station now have the opportunity to receive prescription medications with home delivery within 60 minutes after placing an order.
Vin Gupta, chief physician of Amazon Pharmacy, commenting on the launch of the new service, mentioned that during medical school training, such a concept as a golden window is used, meaning a term existing in clinical medicine, implying a time interval between when the patient’s well-being worsened and when he can receive treatment. Mr. Gupta said that Amazon is actively working to significantly narrow the golden window from diagnosis to providing assistance to combat the disease. According to him, drone delivery is an essential step forward in the framework of the relevant efforts.
Vin Gupta noted that earlier intervention is a decisive factor for the results of the treatment of patients, regardless of what kind of disease they encountered.
The press release also contains information that Amazon Pharmacy customers can opt for free drone delivery in less than 60 minutes when placing an order. The pharmacist will make sure that the medicines are loaded and delivered to the client’s home within an hour.
Amazon is currently actively making efforts as part of a process that can be summarized as a multi-year path to a more complete implementation of the healthcare system in the virtual space.
RxPass services provide patients who use a pharmacy with the opportunity to access generic medicines for a fee of $5 per month.
The e-commerce giant also offers customers access to AWS HealthScribe, a service that uses speech recognition and generative artificial intelligence to create clinical documentation. Experts say that the company has already managed to form some automation in the management of consumer spending, which is associated with the purchase of pharmaceuticals.
In August, it became known that Amazon Pharmacy uses automatic coupons sponsored by drug manufacturers to help patients save on insulin and other means for the treatment of diabetes.
There is also currently a high level of readiness in the consumer environment to use digital tools and virtual platforms to manage the needs in the sphere of healthcare, establish direct contacts with healthcare providers, and gain access to pharmaceuticals. For example, in the United States, almost two-thirds of Generation Z representatives use websites for these purposes.
At the same time, consumers are less enthusiastic about the prospects of delivering goods using robots. The restrained perception of the prospects for automating the process is especially relevant in cases when the issue of delivery in the sphere of food is being discussed. In the United States, 71% of participants in a survey on the relevant topic stated that they were not interested in robotics or automated systems within the framework of the mentioned use case.
As we have reported earlier, Amazon to Open Retail Business in South Africa.
