Smarter, Faster, Safer: How Medication Delivery is Evolving for Pharmacies

Patients now expect medication delivery to feel less like healthcare and more like retail: fast, transparent, and on their terms. For pharmacy leaders, meeting those expectations is anything but simple. Across the country, pharmacies are being asked to modernize delivery models while balancing safety, compliance, cost controls, and already-strained operations.

As pharmacy delivery expands beyond the four walls, leaders are rethinking not just how medications get to patients, but what it takes to do so reliably at scale. To help make sense of how pharmacy delivery is changing, we sat down with Bri Robinson, Pharmaceutical Care Manager at Cleveland Clinic, to discuss challenges that will feel familiar to pharmacy leaders everywhere. One of many navigating the same operational, regulatory, and patient-experience pressures playing out across the country, Bri shared practical insights from Cleveland Clinic’s approach to this new delivery landscape. 

1. Patient expectations have permanently changed, [JC1] and there’s no going back

Amazon changed what people expect from delivery. When something ships, customers want to know where it is, when it will arrive, and what is happening if there is a delay. Those expectations now carry into healthcare and pharmacy.

For pharmacies, delivery is no longer a background task at the end of the process. It is part of the patient experience and often the last interaction a patient has with the pharmacy. When delivery is unclear, delayed, or silent, patients associate that experience directly with the pharmacy itself. COVID did not create this shift but rather reinforced it. As patients became used to transparent delivery experiences everywhere else, those same expectations followed them into prescription delivery.

Today, patients expect:

• Real-time delivery tracking and visibility
• Clear chain of custody they can understand
• Automatic updates when something changes
• Flexible delivery options

Proactive communication, without needing to call and ask where a prescription is

As Bri puts it, healthcare delivery increasingly needs to feel more like retail, while still meeting the regulatory and clinical standards pharmacy demands.

The challenge is delivering that level of visibility in an environment where mistakes are not just inconvenient, they are dangerous.s

2. Automation isn’t about replacing pharmacists, it’s about protecting and enabling them

A consistent theme across Bri’s insights was clear: automation should eliminate friction without sacrificing judgment. Some examples of this non-essential friction are:

• Swivel-chairing between systems
• Copy-pasting data
• Manually tracking shipments
• Answering “where’s my medication?” calls

Cleveland Clinic is using data, integrations, and automation to take those tasks off clinicians’ plates, so pharmacists can focus on what only humans can do: clinical decision-making and patient counseling.

3. Delivery decisions are becoming clinical decisions

Medication delivery isn’t just about speed anymore. Weather patterns, geography, patient risk, inventory availability, and temperature sensitivity all factor into how, when, and even if a shipment should go out.

Cleveland Clinic is already using data to:

• Adjust delivery timing based on weather risk
• Choose delivery methods based on patient profiles
• Escalate shipments when delays could create health risks

This is where logistics, analytics, and pharmacy operations fully converge, and where the wrong tools can create real patient risk.

4. Lockers, access points, and “last-mile” innovation are coming, carefully

Medication lockers are no longer a future concept. They’re already allowed in some states, and under active review in others. But the discussion goes far beyond convenience.

Bri broke down how pharmacy leaders should evaluate smart lockers and access points today: Patient-specific lockers vs. open models:

• Lockers assigned to a specific patient preserve pharmacist review and accountability.
• More open or “vending-machine” style models raise regulatory concerns because they separate dispensing decisions from patient context.
• Chain of custody doesn’t stop at the pharmacy door: Boards of Pharmacy focus on who stocked the medication, how access is controlled, how identity is verified at pickup, and what happens if a prescription changes after it’s staged.
• Oversight must scale with access: As delivery and pickup options expand, pharmacist oversight becomes more important  not less.
• Technology can support access and efficiency, but it cannot remove clinical judgment or safety checks.

From this insight its key that last-mile innovation is viable when it strengthens, not shortcuts, the important safeguards that are key to maintaining complete patient protection.

5. Visibility and proof matter more than ever

Tracking isn’t just for patients. Payers, prescribing physicians, accrediting bodies, and regulators increasingly expect:

• Shipment confirmation
• Delivery timestamps
• Proof of delivery
• Auditable records, sometimes years later

Signatures alone may soon not be enough. Data-rich delivery visibility is becoming a requirement, not a nice-to-have.

Why this conversation matters now

Medication delivery has quietly become one of the most complex parts of pharmacy operations. It’s no longer just about getting a package out the door; it’s about coordinating systems, people, carriers, and regulations in a way that doesn’t break under scale.

Pharmacy leaders across the U.S. are being asked to expand access without adding risk, control costs without slowing care, and meet rising patient expectations without pulling pharmacists further away from clinical work. At the same time, regulators and payers expect clear proof of what happened to every prescription and may investigate prescriptions up to 10 years after they are delivered.

This is why delivery decisions now feel heavier: because the consequences are real. Missed handoffs create patient calls, manual work creates errors, gaps in tracking, they all lead to greater liabilities when it comes to insurance audits. And disconnected systems make all of it harder and riskier than it needs to be.

We captured all of Bri’s thoughts on our podcast series, UnBoxed. During this episode she offers a candid look at how Cleveland Clinic is navigating these new realities, from deciding when automation helps to evaluating new delivery models without compromising safety or pharmacist oversight and so much more. Listen in to hear more of her insight, and consider browsing our pharmacy shipping homepage for more learning resources.

Enjoy the episode? Check out all episodes of UnBoxed.