What if you could get the health supplies your hospital or clinic needs in just 3 hours?
In China, Alibaba has committed to a 3 hour delivery for health care goods for 1500 drugstores. This ‘Ji Su Da’ or “fast delivery” to customers who will have access to the supplies they need according to Reuters. Most of the supplies that they would have access to would be non-prescription drugs and other health care items.
This is a huge advancement especially in China since this shows that with these systems in place, the overall health of a country can be dramatically changed.
If they can successfully imitate Amazon with their supply chain, it would eliminate high stocks which can be expensive and with the quick delivery, fewer products can be kept in stock and supplied to the citizens when they are needed. From the user and management view, these advances within the supply chain are great news to advance China’s large population.
If they move it into prescription medications, this could help reduce inventory errors, preventing medications from being sold on the black market, and insure the quality of the medication. In many low and middle income countries fake medications are mixed with the correct medication causing unnecessary deaths and longer recovery times. This new 3-hour system will allow them to meet the needs of the citizens.
What would RGH do if it was consulting on a project like this?
We train people in pharmacy management and supply chain management. In this case those 1500 drugstores would be staffed with properly trained employees on how to order supplies, what to order and when to order them. Inventory management is key to managing the delivery times to make the store and supply chain more effective and efficient. RGH would also train employees on how to check when medications expire, what to do to prevent expired medications, how to order what they need and respond to the demand of its customers.
A pharmacy or drugstore has two jobs: manage the stock levels of goods and medications, and take care of the customer. With the inventory management system in place, the store owner is able to interact with their customers more and consult them on the needs and services they can provide. For example, this could be from just spending a few moments with someone to make sure they are purchasing the correct over the counter drugs, walking a person through how often and under what circumstances they need to take their medications, detecting unwanted side effects and drug interactions, and educating them about the use of their medicines for diabetes and other chronic conditions.
These advances are truly a step in the right direction to make our world a healthier place.
WWRGHD is a new blog series from RGH where we look at events in the news and share our take on what could be done, or done differently, to improve universal coverage to healthcare in the United States and around the world.
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