A web-based technology platform has long been the centrepiece of medicinal cannabis company Althea Group's (ASX: AGH) customer experience strategy, providing educational information and prescription pathways for patients and doctors alike.
Now the Melbourne-based group is taking the Althea Concierge up a notch, launching online sales in Australia via the platform so that products can be delivered to patients' doors directly.
The development will help patients with diseases or disabilities, or those with work or family commitments, avoid multiple visits to clinicians or pharmacies that can sometimes prove burdensome.
In an Australian first, and fast-tracked in response to the ongoing threat of COVID-19, Althea Concierge can now be used in conjunction with video telemedicine so that doctors can prescribe the company's products over the platform.
The company plans to add the same functionality to Althea Concierge in the UK in the coming months.
Stay tuned. Our Australia's top 20 cannabis companies list for 2020 will be released soon.
"We are very excited about this latest update to the Althea Concierge platform," says Althea CEO and founder Josh Fegan (pictured), who won Trailblazer of the Year at the Melbourne Young Entrepreneur Awards 2019.
"The ability for contactless sales is probably the biggest development yet for medicinal cannabis in Australia.
"You need to have a lot more than just a quality product in the highly regulated prescription cannabis space and Althea's ongoing investment in technology, provides us with a premium value proposition that we believe none of our competitors possess to provide educational information and track."
The move coincides with the addition of new features in the platform as well, including a new interactive treatment plan feature allows doctors to issue personalised treatment plans directly to their patient's phone.
This delivers fully customised dosage reminders to the patient, and allows the patient to record their medication usage, providing ongoing feedback to their doctor via the secure Althea Concierge platform.
Additionally, the patient will be requested to complete a validated assessment survey appropriate to their medical condition, at the start and end of their treatment plan, allowing doctors to assess their patients' progress.
Anonymised patient symptom assessment data contributes to a body of real world evidence in support of Althea medications, providing invaluable information about treatment efficacy back to the prescribing community.
More than 130 individual responses have already been added to this evidence database since the inception of Althea interactive treatment plans.
The group states the privacy and data security of the personal information of users are held at the highest regard by Althea, and the platform adheres to Australian Privacy Principles contained in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and to the extent applicable, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
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