Developing a pharmacy function in a newly built health centre, where the low estimated chances of success and the minimal resources required an innovative approach. However, based on my experience, relevant knowledge and the network I have built up in recent years, I knew it had to be possible to realise a successful pharmacy.

In close cooperation and interaction with relevant stakeholders, I developed a new innovative pharmacy model using and considering robotisation and far-reaching automation, Big Data and Computing. Technology that IGZ requires to prove is safe and at least as good as the usual methods from the professional guidelines. Many innovations in healthcare get stuck here. What is new is difficult to prove. By working out and agreeing on many small steps in interaction with the IGZ, we still arrived at a new concept. Routine work was improved and replaced by technology, creating room for a closer cooperation around the patient and for a pharmacist who can be in constant one-on-one contact with the patient.

This new form of pharmaceutical care was perceived as more pleasant by patients because of the personal approach, and it also showed better results. Despite the positive results for patients, wholesalers did not want to cooperate. A concept in which the pharmacist becomes independent again was probably not in their interest. Health insurers did not cooperate either, because something new does not fit into an existing box and the established reimbursement structure. For this reason, the minimum fee was awarded and no payment was made for new forms of care that emerged, such as pharmaceutical coaching, continuous screening together with doctors and care at home. Competitors' worked against them. They complained to the IGZ more than once about deviations from professional guidelines. Things finally went wrong when a new inspector followed up one of these complaints. The IGZ system indicated five previous visits to the pharmacy in question, so it had priority. I was a stranger to him. There was no file. He was not familiar with the specific situation, with the many small steps I had taken with his predecessor in those five appointments or with the agreements we had made. So he could only see the situation as one that deviated significantly from the professional guidelines. There was a line through all the agreements. Monitoring and remote care were no longer accepted. I was then obliged to work according to the outdated guidelines. As a result, the business was no longer profitable and I decided to sell the pharmacy. The fact that the inspector later stated off the record that he had made a big error in judgement cannot change that.