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Only about half of workers who are supposed to take prescriptions regularly stick to the recommended medication schedules.
Dr. Vin Gupta — a pulmonologist, NBC medical analyst and chief medical officer for Amazon's Amazon Pharmacy business — argues that one way to improve medication schedule adherence is to make getting the medications easier.
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Gupta talked about convenience as a public health tool Wednesday in New York, at a health care conference organized by Forbes.
Amazon Pharmacy already offers same-day prescription delivery in places like New York. It's adding same-day delivery in 20 other markets in 2025.
Related: Amazon to deliver same-day prescriptions in 20 more U.S. cities in 2025
Gupta said offering fast home delivery can help control infectious disease outbreaks and improve management of chronic conditions.
"We are not good at early detection and early intervention," Gupta said.
Partly because of that gap, Gupta said, about 1 million Americans go to the hospital with pneumonia every year, and about 50,000 of those people die.
"Imagine marrying at an in-home flu test with Tamiflu right at your door, in just a few hours," he said.
Gupta also said research coming out soon will show that "when you make things more convenient, when you lean in on speed, there is some magic there that allows people to take their medications."
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Allison Bell
Allison Bell, a senior reporter at ThinkAdvisor and BenefitsPRO, previously was an associate editor at National Underwriter Life & Health. She has a bachelor's degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She can be reached through X at @Think_Allison.
