Pharmacy and Augmented Reality (AR): What are the possibilities?

It's late in the evening, and I'm running to the pharmacy. Kids at home with a fever. Where is the medicine? What medicine? Let's assume I open the store's app and ask it, "what fever medicine can I give to a 6-year-old?" Then it shows a guided path on the floor I follow and highlights a box of medication on the shelf for me, alongside a discount I can use at the register.

This will likely be the future, with a combination of augmented reality (AR) and the ability of AI chatbots that can process consumer requests. The pharmacy companies will leverage this to drive consumer engagement and services, and I can see manufacturers see this as a win to help build brand awareness. Maybe a video would pop up walking me through how to administer the medication and giving other helpful advice. Beats having to Google or scroll through YouTube videos to gauge an answer. I want it now.

But aside from just the consumer experience, what else could be done for the pharmacy itself? I saw a post on Twitter that showed how AR could be used in everyday life, and it got me thinking about the possibilities.

This isn't new for me; I've actually written a lot about AR/VR in the past and published about it in several journals. But I feel like since Google Glass failed, there was a hiatus in interest. But now AI is making huge inroads, tech is better, and we see companies investing in tech again. More focus on AR and mixed reality is becoming a discussion point, so I wanted to reexplore the topic here.

How AR Could be Used by the Pharmacy

Example of requesting to locate a medication in the pharmacy.

There are many ways that AR could be used by the pharmacy team to augment current operations. Some that come to mind are:

  • Find a medication on the shelf

  • Get stock notifications related to low-supply issues

  • Find and locate out-of-date medications needing to be returned

  • Perform pill identification

  • Pill counts on a tray

  • Help identify liquids and mixing components

  • Compounding

  • Provide counseling tips

  • Convert scripts to digital format and upload them to the pharmacy management system

  • Teleservices

  • Find patient medications in the waiting bin

  • Provide task lists

  • Help highlight where to inject a patient with a vaccine

  • Show metrics

  • Incoming calls

So, yeah. There's a lot (and I'm sure you can think of more! Feel free to comment)! I put together a same of possible mockups for AR in the pharmacy, and hope you enjoy them!