Crowd-sourcing technology has made its way to the delivery of healthcare items with CourMed, a McKinney-based company that crowd-sources drivers to securely deliver prescriptions, high-end vitamins, supplements, and eyewear.
Founded in 2015, CourMed’s technology now allows pharmacists, optometrists, high-end vitamin or supplement store owners to connect with patients via HIPA-compliant real-time video consultations, called CourMed CONNECT. For a homebound customer, these consultations can be especially valuable to make sure medication and supplements are taken correctly.
“We are in the encouraging people business,” said co-founder Derrick L. Miles via release. “CourMed is more than an enterprise software and a crowdsourced network of medical couriers; we provide encouragement to each person that comes in contact with our platform.”
Miles says the CourMed contracts with pharmacies in North Texas and delivers up to 60 miles from each of its pharmacy locations. Drivers are contract employees who can accept a delivery just like Lyft or Uber accepts a ride. They have north of 50 drivers and are a preferred vendor with pharmaceutical giant (and recent North Texas transplant) McKesson.
Miles added via release, “What keeps our delivery engine humming is our unique crowd-sourced driver pool. We know that many retirees and stay-at-home parents desire some kind of part-time or flexible employment. These two core groups comprise the bulk of our drivers, because they also offer an intangible asset – their empathy to the patients.”
