The company's plan calls for recruiting doctors to participate in its extranet-based ordering system and selling patients on cost savings of 5 percent to 15 percent. If the company is successful, it could tap into the huge mail-order business for prescriptions. What's necessary is a security infrastructure that supports filing prescriptions from doctors' offices online, as well as a distribution system to guarantee timely delivery of medication.
Success is anything but certain.
In fact, the data being shared is as sensitive as information dispensed from a financial services site, and liability issues are equally weighty. Although other companies have taken steps toward building virtual apothecaries, few if any are capable of authorizing new orders and filling and tracking prescriptions using information transmitted over the Internet. But, beginning with the retailing behemoth Wal-Mart, almost every large pharmacy retailer is racing to provide similar services online. And, finally, health-maintenance organizations, particularly Kaiser Permanente, have started to network their pharmacies using intranets. Winners in this market may be defined by their value-added apps, Rosson predicted.