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The Internet of Things: a game for morons and control freaks
A vast cotton candy dream comes to life. O hail the glorious future! Your home will be automatic. It will run by itself. Push a button. Nothing else is required. Planet-wide, all-encompassing, interconnected, automated, regulated, the Internet of Things is the system of systems being brought online by the emerging 5G wireless transmission apparatus. In…
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Marketing Focus – 1. CORRECTION 2. CHANNELLED MESSAGING 3. MONEY-BACK IS NO GUARANTEE 4. IF ONLY I KNEW … TO NEVER SAY NO TO NEW 5. THE DEATH OF SHOPPING CENTRES
1. CORRECTION. It is a defining term. The two major corrections in share markets around the world in the first 9 days of February were timely reminders that a haemostatic process is innate and applicable to many aspects of commerce, society, politics, life and ecology. Correction does not equate to, or imply that there is…
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Blockchain – a trust system that could underwrite health information exchanges and integrate with other trust systems.
Blockchain is a relatively new technology system that can be customised to transact trusted actions, not being under a centralised control involving governments or banks. It is closely associated with the concept of Bitcoin, which is described as a form of financial currency called “cryptocurrency”. Many new cryptocurrencies have been launched, most emulating Bitcoin’s success in…
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Prime Air – The Amazon Solution for Internet-ordered products is not quite ready for take-off
Amazon has invested time and money to speed up its shipping services. It has algorithms that anticipate a client order, ultra-efficient robots that pick items from warehouses, and even a service titled Prime Now that delivers allowable items to your doorstep, just hours after you order them. Amazon’s primary focus appears to be to market and control totally an…
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Pharmacy Disruptors – Amazon, Artificial Intelligence & Holographic Health Practitioners
Disruption, as we all know, is an inevitability that is to be feared. If that fear can be used to motivate a chain reaction of positivity, then we have everything to gain and nothing to lose. Fear is already building around the knowledge that Amazon will be entering the pharmacy market in Australia and that…
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Blockchain – disruptive technology behind “cryptocurrencies” and now set to invade health.
A blockchain is defined as a distributed database that can maintain an ever-expanding list of records (called “blocks”) without the need for a trusted administrator or a central server, instead relying on a peer-to-peer network collectively adhering to a protocol for validating new blocks. Each block contains a time stamp and a link to a…
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Setting up an Open Innovation Program
Let’s face it – community pharmacy is in a knowledge transfer bind. It can no longer function under its own self reliance. It is bogged down because pharmacy leadership has developed hardening of the arteries and finds itself immobile inside each of its traditional infrastructures. The primary cause is twofold: * Information is being collated…
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Robots + AI = Rx Replacement?
In an earlier article (Avatars May Take Over Patient Communications – Where to from there?, I discussed the possibility of pharmacists being able to be displaced, especially in the area of drug information delivery to patients. Big Pharma has always wanted to be able to advertise directly to patients because they know the power of…
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Developing a Single Patient View
From the last business cycle to the current version, pharmacists and community pharmacies have undergone some profound experiences and rapid change. The transition to now is leaving in its wake a sense of indecision and while many opportunities have arisen to improve pharmacist skills and community pharmacy development, only a small number of talented individuals…
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Value Over Profit ?
When pharmacy comes under financial pressure it always looks for a “quick fix” and it usually takes the form of concentrating resources and focus into various retail channels of activity. Even though pharmacists are criticised for expanding their retail offering and daring to create survival profits, it is a necessary activity to ensure that the…