Medicine isn’t a “nice-to-have,” it is a “have-to-have.”
Bobbie Montgomery, Senior Vice President Healthcare Practice Group
I am lucky enough to work for a terrific company with terrific people. We do innovative work in an inspiring environment for appreciative clients. The most gratifying part of my job, however, is helping get medicine into the hands of the people who need it most.
Because unlike most products and services, medicine isn’t a “nice-to-have.” It is a “have-to-have.” That’s one reason why, for the past several decades, pharmaceutical manufacturers have been climbing aboard the patient assistance program (PAP) bandwagon, as a means of making prescription medicine available to every patient in need, regardless of his or her ability to pay.
The problem, however, lies in the details. While communications, marketing and computer technology in general have made nearly miraculous advances in recent years, patient assistance programs haven’t evolved at the same pace. They remain clunky, sluggish, complicated and costly. Too much of the burden continues to rest on the shoulders and staff of healthcare providers, who already are undeniably over-worked, or on patients who already are understandably overwhelmed with their diagnoses.
We can do better.
As an industry, we owe it to patients, to medical practices, and to pharmaceutical manufacturers to apply existing technology to PAP systems. It is up to us to automate the process. To make it affordable. And to make it both healthcare-provider-friendly and patient-accessible.
Today’s technology makes all of this possible. And I’m proud to say that Technekes leads the way in developing applications for pharmaceutical manufacturers. But we can’t do it alone. As an industry, we need to work harder to push the evolution of PAPs. We have the technology. We have the know-how. We have the systems.
We now need to take the next step. For pharmaceutical manufacturers, a 21st century PAP is a “have-to-have.”