Meet In The Middle?

I don’t know exactly how the Internet pharmacy issue will be resolved in the years ahead.  Will we allow online questionnaires?  Will they be for all drugs?  I can’t predict these details.  But I do predict that more Internet interactions with doctors and other health care providers will become more and more common.  Most likely, the “rogue sites” and the “legitimate sites” will trend closer and closer together over time.  (This ignores of course, the element that’s always going to be out there knowingly breaking the law.)

Example: Consider a small piece from a news channel in Midland, Texas about the new remote pharmacy program.  The article talks about “telepharmacies, which have real drug stores and allow customers to talk to a real person connected to a pharmacist by the Internet.”  These programs started in North Dakota, which already has 67 locations providing such services.”

With time, we’ll simply come to expect such interactions.  And when we do, I think the prescribing issue might lose some of its emotional charge and we’ll be able to deal with it more reasonably.

The Houston Chronicle also has an interesting article on the program.  According to the Chronicle, the following states have changed their laws to allow for remote pharmacies: “Alaska, Idaho, Illinois, Montana, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Wyoming, along with the District of Columbia.”