ArinCare unveils its global ambition
ARINCARE has a plan to offer its e-pharmacy platform to the international market within the next couple of years. Meanwhile, the firm expects to have grown to 4,000 individual pharmacies using its e-platform free of charge nationwide in 2020, said Teera Kanakkanjanarat, CEO of ArinCare.
The platform features various management tools, such as drug retail management, stock management, patient information records and accounting. It will also offer back office management to allow pharmacies to directly order drugs from around 25 pharmaceutical manufactures in real time. With the aim of providing an easy and accessible platform, it will also allow customers or patients to pay the cost of drugs via e-payment, including QR code and Rabbit Line Pay. It also runs on cloud computing. The platform also supports “Good Pharmacy Practice” (GPP), a standard that responds to the needs of the people who use the pharmacist’s services to provide optimal, evidence-based care.
“We started in the healthcare business three years ago, with the aim to help pharmacy shops utilise information technology and solutions to support their business,” explained Teera. Each day about 2 million Thais walk in to one of 24,000 pharmacies nationwide to purchase pills and other drugs, but most of the shops do not currently use IT to support their business, he said.
“We therefore spent around six months developing the e-pharmacy platform to support pharmacies nationwide. The platform also serves as an e-marketplace between drug stores and drug manufacturers,” said Teera.
ArinCare is also partnering Samitivej Hospital to refer patients to the hospital, with the service designed for those customers who are ill and want to meet the doctor at the hospital.
The pharmacy, for its part, can exchange the patient’s drug information with the hospital, as well as refer a patient to the hospital. As a result, a patient does not need to repeatedly inform the doctor whenever they go to hospital or the history of the medication they have used. However, the doctor will be able to access patient information through a one-time password. The platform will also connect with an insurance company in the next two years.
Teera said that around 2,700 pharmacies nationwide currently use the e-pharmacy platform, and expect around 40 per cent growth to 4,000 shops in 2020. The firm is also planning to offer the platform to the international market, including India and Indonesia, within the next two years.
“We want to improve healthcare services in the country and create community-based healthcare ecosystem to improve the quality of life for Thai people as a whole,” said Teera.
