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As pharmacy owners, we often decide to introduce technology because of our emotions, even narcissism, when we should be using objective information and hard business facts, says Terry Maguire…

I want to make it clear from the outset that I’m not a Luddite. I embrace new technology, not because I want to, but because I have to. And for that, I probably lag behind on such investments.

New technology brings efficiencies that have the potential to improve our businesses, yet too few of us are able to fully appreciate what a certain App, a new shinny piece of kit, or an AI-powered solution will really do for the bottom line. 

When it comes to new and emerging technology, a business decision to purchase, or not, is seldom made on a clear objective understanding of how it fits with our business objectives.

Answers are never in glossy manufactures’ brochures

We are either too lazy, too arrogant or too ignorant to work out if it will improve our workflow or just add to the cost of the business.

Objective answers are never in the glossy manufactures’ brochures or in the silken words of the company rep during an expensive dinner at the recently opened Ivy restaurant.

A young contractor told me recently of the aggressive and unrelenting approaches of a company rep attempting to sell him a machine to fill his MDS trays.

The claims about efficiency were excessive. When the new contractor wasn’t buying the hype – he confessed he nearly bought the machine – the final approach was to suggest this young contractor would be left behind and his business would be diminished.

Over his first five years in business, the opposite was true. In the absence of a proper objective cost-benefit-analysis, we are left at the mercy of the marketing men and I have never found their interests and my interests significantly converge.

Counter-intuitive given emphasis we have on robotics

Some years back, I got to know an estates manager for one of the national multiple groups with responsibility for technological development who, at that time, was looking at pharmacy robots.

His objective view, having piloted these in a number of branches, was that the investment in capital, maintenance and replacement could not be justified on any financial level.

I found this completely counter-intuitive given the emphasis we have on robotics and how they seem essential for pharmacies of a certain prescription volume.

He was not suggesting pharmacy robots were of no use; his analysis was that they could not produce enough cost efficiencies to justify buying one.

I’m not aware of pharmacy letting a technician go having introduced a robot

When a robot costs over £200,000 and needs replacing every 10 years and has significant yearly upgrade costs, it really has to do something special to pay its way even if it doesn’t take holidays!

I’m not aware of any pharmacy letting a dispensing technician go having introduced a robot.

I have just watched a video from a pharmacy software provider and again, counterintuitively, this IT company is suggesting that their computer software, if applied in a high dispensing business, can make a robot redundant.

They claim they have streamlined the dispensing process; clinical and medicine checks to maximise the efficiency of the system. Perhaps this is just hype but again, how can I really know?

A number of business owners have told me they are considering introducing dispensing lockers outside the pharmacy. I wonder what this will bring to the business other than looking rather good and bringing a certain ‘wow’ factor.

Directly comparing a locker to a well-trained personable counter assistant who can fetch a medicine bag from the storage shelves in under 30 seconds means the lockers needs to be very inexpensive. They are not.

When we decide to buy expensive technology, we are biased by that decision

From what I have seen, usage of these lockers by patients happens mainly when the pharmacy is open. If they are on the street, they are stopping customers or patients coming into the pharmacy and for me that’s not good.

Interestingly, human psychology understands well that when we make a decision to buy a new piece of expensive technology, we are biased by that decision.

And even when it does not do what we want it to do, or provide the promised financial savings, we live with it, identifying the benefits while actively ignoring the negatives.

We are great businessmen and women, so how could we possibly have made a wrong decision? Charles Handy, the Irish-born business guru who sadly died in December taught me so much about this.

As business owners, we must harness the significant benefits of emerging technology, particularly AI, to maximise the efficiency and safety of our pharmacy businesses.

This is not an easy challenge. Most of us are too often making our purchasing decisions on narcissistic feelings and emotions rather than objective information and hard business facts.

Terry Maguire is a leading pharmacist based in Northern Ireland.