New Delhi: Amazon Pharmacy is leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to significantly improve the speed and accuracy of their prescription fulfilment process. This translates to same-day medication delivery for customers in select cities.
The AI technology automates tasks that previously took pharmacists hours to complete, reducing them to minutes or even seconds. This frees up pharmacists to focus on their core competencies and provide better patient care, according to Kelvin Downes, director of fulfilment for Amazon Pharmacy.
“AI isn’t replacing pharmacists,” Downes emphasised, “it’s empowering them.” By eliminating administrative burdens, pharmacists can dedicate their time to what truly matters – using their expertise to ensure patients receive the right medication and have a positive experience.
Amazon prioritises patient safety. Downes assures that every prescription goes through a rigorous verification process by a licensed pharmacist before leaving the fulfilment centre. This ensures the medication, dosage, quantity, and address information are all accurate.
To support prescription medication drone delivery, Amazon Pharmacy and Prime Air co-created a new fulfillment process to ensure hyperfast delivery. The pharmacy and fulfilment centre are connected, allowing the pharmacy team to clinically evaluate a new prescription, dispense the medication, and hand over a single package for a drone to swiftly deliver. One particular order, for instance, was processed and delivered in just 53 minutes via drone.
“We built out a new fulfilment system by integrating a fully licensed pharmacy into existing logistics operations and smaller sites,” Downes said. “Prescription medication processing time is shrinking with AI on the back end and automation and new micromobility technologies on the front end,” said Downes.
Robotic arms assist in filling, labelling, and sending prescriptions for pharmacist inspection in as few as 30 seconds (manually it would take handlers at least three minutes), and it’s the case with the new small-format pharmacies that are enabling same-day delivery in a growing number of cities.
