The Slippery Slopes of Online Drugstores

Drugstore.com, a new online pharmacy for prescriptions, wellness products, health and beauty aids recently opened it's online virtual doors for your shopping pleasure. For some online users this might be an excellent service. I can see it being extremely helpful within the disability community, an easy way to get those scripts filled and delivered directly to your door.

However, is this a slippery slope? I still question the security of the net and servers in general, how secure is your medical information going to be? Do they keep patient medical records on a separate computer system, or have they got a firewall secure enough to protect their customers? If you decide to use Drugstore.com I suggest you ask them questions around these concerns.

If you have questions regarding your prescriptions they have trained pharmacist's available who answer your questions via email. A helpful service, I always find that reading answers is easier than listening to them. However, what if your question is about a sensitivity to a drug, you can't email your rash to the online pharmacist. You might think the rash is very serious until you visit a local druggist and he/she through a personal dialogue with you determines that it's an allergy reaction to that shellfish you had last night for dinner. I'm not sure how a dialogue with an online pharmacist would measure up in comparison.

Those of us with chronic medical concerns also tend to develop a "rapport" with our druggist. After all we do tend to see them more frequently that John Q. Public! I ponder how I would develop this "rapport" with an online druggist? My local druggist has been able to suggest new drugs and products for me on several occasions. He views me as a friend as well as a customer, would I get that same personalized services from an online pharmacy? My druggist is part of my "resource team" that I have developed to help me to deal with living with chronic medical conditions. Do I wish to replace him with a faceless name of an online service? When I visit my local pharmacy I can see my druggist, I can see his degree on the wall, I know which University he/she has attended. With an online drugstore can I say the same? Will I know the credentials of the druggist's looking after my health and wellbeing? Will my script be dispensed by a pharmacy assistant and then checked by an actual licensed druggist, or will a druggist handle it only?

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