In response to my recent note about the increasing competition between Amazon-PillPack and CVS in terms of home delivery of drugs, Andrea Pitkus submitted the following comment:
It'll be interesting to see how this evolves, especially with the increase of porch pirates. It would be disastrous to patient safety if porch pirates steal meds from these unsecure delivery mechanisms. It would harm patients who need vital medication and also the receivers of the stolen (black market) meds. Hopefully, narcotics and other important meds are not delivered in the pill packs. Although "preset" pills are valuable for patients that don't have dynamic changes with medications or dosing, they may not be as valuable for patients who are on medications that are titrated regularly such as coumadin.
Andrea raises a significant concern that transcends the theft of home-delivered drugs -- billions of dollars of goods are sitting on consumers porches monthly with little security. I discovered a number of published articles about "porch pirates" with the following being of particular value: Security Moves to Prevent Amazon Package Theft. It offers a number of solutions for the theft of packages but not all of them seemed practical. For example, I suspect that many consumers ordering home-delivered goods will be unwilling to give up the convenience of this service by picking up their goods at an Amazon locker.
Another option suggested in the article is to install a curbside locking mailbox which runs about $100 but would also entail some installation costs. However, it might not be big enough to accommodate the delivery of larger packages. For people who are at serious risk from porch pirates, one practical flexible solution might be a so-called smart doorbell. Here's a description of the device (see: Security Moves to Prevent Amazon Package Theft).
A smart doorbell might be the simple solution you need to keep purchases safe. These Wi-Fi enabled doorbell cameras let you see—and talk to—whoever is at the front door, whether you’re in the kitchen or at the office. The Ring Video Doorbell includes a motion-activated camera, two-way audio, and an app that sends alerts to your smartphone, tablet, or computer.
As to the problem of critical drugs being stolen from porches, I am sure that such items would be readily replaced by CVS or PillPack when notified about their loss. They will surely recognize such losses as the cost of doing business. It's clear to me that one's front porch will become increasingly important as a delivery site. However, some technologies are now available to make the porch more secure. Look for Amazon to offer some solutions to protect such deliveries such as a discounted price for a smart doorbell for Amazon Prime customers.
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