How Healthcare eCommerce Impacts Traditional Provi
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Several years after the coronavirus pandemic forced most industries to either shut down or adopt remote working, the healthcare industry is still adapting to e-commerce. E-commerce had been a dominant form of trade by the time the pandemic struck, and the healthcare industry slowly incorporated e-commerce features such as online consultations, online medication orders and home deliveries to prevent the spread of the disease.
The purchase of healthcare provider One Medical by e-commerce giant Amazon in early 2023 significantly increased the company’s presence in healthcare and cemented the ties between medicine and e-commerce.
Generally, the introduction of e-commerce to medicine has been good for patients. They can now book virtual appointments with physicians, order medications and receive deliveries of healthcare-related products right to their doorstep by pressing a couple of buttons.
E-commerce has the potential to significantly increase access to medications, especially for people living in regions without adequate medical infrastructure. Patients now have access to a wider variety of medication options and can interact with medical professionals and professional services that would have been geographically or otherwise inaccessible. In some cases, e-commerce is allowing patients to access life-saving medications such as insulin at significantly lower prices and forcing other pharmaceutical companies to make their products more affordable.
E-commerce will likely also cause a reduction in physical traffic at physical medical establishments as more people rely on the ease and convenience of online interactions and transactions.
As such, healthcare institutions will have to respond to evolving customer preferences by incorporating e-commerce features into their business models.
Online trade brings efficient logistics and delivery to the table while conventional medical providers specialize in high-quality medical care. The efficient combination of these two different functions can allow for a seamless and frictionless experience from the moment a patient seeks medical care to when they are fully treated.
Creating such a seamless patient experience from end to end will require the cooperation of health e-commerce platforms and healthcare providers for the facilitation of key services such as remote patient monitoring and telemedicine. On top of improving service delivery and bolstering treatment outcomes for patients, collaborations between traditional healthcare and e-commerce can grant providers access to a wider pool of patients while giving platforms more credibility.
Efficiently designed platforms with features such as follow-up consultations and online appointment booking can enable higher rates of patient engagement, which ultimately benefits all parties involved.
As e-commerce and healthcare become more intertwined, traditional physicians can significantly enhance service delivery and reach more patients through strategic partnerships with e-commerce companies. For example, oncologists can conduct in-person examinations of their patients and then give them prescriptions for cancer treatments made by any of the different companies, including CNS Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: CNSP), which patients can then order via e-commerce platforms.
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to CNS Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: CNSP) are available in the company’s newsroom at https://ibn.fm/CNSP
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