New KEM case online: A future vision for Service Pharmacy

Pharmacists have a comfortable position; after all, everyone is a customer at a pharmacy. It's the place to pick up your medications. But what if parties like PostNL and Amazon also start delivering medications? That means that, as a customer, you will never have to wait in the pharmacy again. Ordered today, delivered tomorrow - the traditional pharmacy would then become irrelevant. The key question in this project: what will be the relationship between the pharmacist and the patient five years from now? And: what is the position of the pharmacist in our healthcare system?

The pharmacy as a welcoming expert

It was clear five years ago: the future of pharmacy is under attack. So too for franchise organisation Service Pharmacy, which faced a challenge. How do they show their added value in a world where you can get medicine at any time.

A pharmacy is not just a "medicine dispensing point. It is the only health care provider you can walk into without an appointment. A health care provider with the overview of your health who is always there for you. The pharmacy is the "welcoming expert.

'To project that role a bit more and to leave behind the somewhat stuffy image of the pharmacy, Service Pharmacy needed a new position in relation to the patient and the healthcare system,' says Jeroen van Erp, co-founder of strategic design agency Fabrique. 'Therefore, based on our vision of the future, we developed a new visual identity, a matching interior concept as well as the design of the new Service Pharmacy app. To convey in this way that the pharmacist of the future is more than a box dispenser.

Our healthcare system is complex and patient direction is lacking. The pharmacist can take more control!

The societal challenge

The first step in the design process was to understand the future world of pharmacy. Based on this context, a vision of the future was developed. This vision outlines a picture of the desired relationship between the pharmacy and the patient five years from now. Van Erp: "An important part of this future vision was the insight that our healthcare system is complex and that direction over patients is lacking. The pharmacist can take more control because they - even more so than the general practitioner - have the overview of the ups and downs of patients - and especially those who are long-term sick.' This particularly involves an accumulation of medication, which is the case with people with chronic illnesses or the elderly - here the overview is lacking. The pharmacist is then able to intercept conflicting medication or unwanted effects to a large extent.

´The affiliated pharmacists, in our view, needed to be much more thought leadership take in the healthcare industry,´ says Van Erp. ´They really needed to become welcoming experts. It was logical that the Service Pharmacy chain with over 500 affiliated pharmacists should take the lead in this. After all, it is always the responsibility of the market leader to innovate in the sector.´

Read the full case here.