As much as we love kiosks here at Acante, even we were taken aback when they got a mention in the prestigious Time magazine. One of the winners of the publication’s Best Inventions of 2026 awards is a pharmacy kiosk built by Amazon which dispenses commonly prescribed medications.
Now, we don’t want to sound too cynical about this. It’s cool to have kiosks get coverage in Time magazine. And the Amazon Pharmacy Kiosk is a cool idea. They’re built to be deployed in doctors’ surgeries so patients can get hold of common drugs as soon as they are prescribed, without having to go to a pharmacy.
But it would be remiss of us if we didn’t mention a couple of points about the editorial decision-making that appears to have influenced the choice of this particular kiosk model, out of all the many thousands in existence around the world, as one of the best current inventions around.
According to the online article accompanying the award, these particular models are “only available at some” clinics in Los Angeles and San Francisco at present. So they’re hardly changing the world. And then we spotted the kicker – at the bottom of the page, a disclosure notice revealing that Time has a content and technology partnership with Amazon. Ah.
The truth is, self-service is having a moment in the pharmacy sector right now. It’s kind of edifying to see that recognised at the rarefied levels of a publication like Time. But this Amazon kiosk is not the most exciting thing happening in pharmacy self-service. The real story is much bigger and much more interesting.
Freeing up pharmacists for more frontline care
Like we said, it’s a worthwhile idea moving self-service dispensing for the most common routine medications – antibiotics and blood pressure treatments – into doctors’ surgeries, mainly for patient convenience. But it barely scratches the surface of the volume of prescriptions handled every day. The bulk of the dispensing workload falls on pharmacies.
In the UK at present, pharmacies are being asked to expand their role. Faced with GP surgeries and A&E departments creaking under unprecedented demand, the government wants pharmacies to evolve into community health hubs, easing the load on frontline NHS services by providing more clinical and consultation services. Which is all well and good. But what about all that medication dispensing that still has to be done while trained pharmacists take on more and more patient appointments?
To square that circle, one of the options pharmacies are exploring is automated dispensing. In simple terms, these systems connect the pharmacy’s inventory and dispensing software to a robot that stores and retrieves the required medicines. Self-service collection kiosks can provide a separate way for patients to collect prepared prescriptions. Pharmacists still oversee dispensing and carry out the professional checks required.
Improving the pharmacy experience
Automating routine collections benefits both pharmacists, who get more time for their expanding patient-facing role, and patients. There are different types of trip to a pharmacy, with and without a prescription in hand. It can be frustrating to have to wait in line to hand in a script when the people in front of you are potentially asking questions about over-the-counter purchases. As they’ve proven in many other sectors, kiosks are the perfect way of reducing wait times by separating those who need personal assistance from those who don’t.
Equally, there are certain categories of medication that can be, let’s be honest, a little embarrassing to have to ask a member of staff about. It’s well documented that people even avoid obtaining medications for more personal problems because of that embarrassment factor and fear of stigma. Kiosks give people extra privacy and therefore the confidence to access what they need. As we’ve seen with online vending, machines can easily be co-opted to gather patient information and offer guidance where needed, too.
The expansion of self-service in pharmacies can benefit both patients and pharmacists by making everyday visits easier while freeing up staff time to focus more on patient care. From prescription collections to discreet purchases, kiosks can help pharmacies serve different needs without putting every customer in the same queue.
