Canada's CBC News reports the Ontario legislature has passed Bill 179, which will allow prescription drug sales through self-service kiosks. The Web site says Oakville, Ontario-based PCA Services Inc. will roll out a network of PharmaTrust kiosks across Ontario in locations such as malls and grocery stores, once appropriate regulatory measures are in place.
The kiosks, which have been in use in a handful of Ontario hospitals for two years, will likely become as indispensable as bank machines and cellphones, particularly as governments look for ways to cut healthcare costs, said Peter Suma, president of PCA Services, which developed the machine.'It will be like a cell phone. It will free you from locational dependence,' Suma said in an interview with CBC News.He used an example of going to a grocery store late at night, only to find the pharmacy section is closed. In the future, a customer will just head over to a PharmaTrust machine, as they're called, feed the doctor's prescription through a slot and pick up the phone for a video conference with a pharmacist. Upon payment, the pharmacist releases the actual drug in the machine and the interaction is complete.
CBC says some Canadians are critical of the machines and fear the "casual" vending of prescription drugs and that patients may not be comfortable asking important private questions. The Canadian Pharmacists Association hasn't taken a position on the kiosks, according to the report.
PCA already has deployed the PharmaTrust kiosks in other countries and plans a trial deployment in the U.K. in early 2010.
