What Pharmacies Are Asking In 2026
After a summer at RedSail Connect, Cardinal Health RBC, GNP ThoughtSpot, and McKesson ideaShare, our regional sales directors came back with a shared observation: the questions have changed.
Pharmacy owners, directors, and managers are still asking about throughput and technology, but the underlying concern has shifted. The conversation is no longer just about dispensing faster. It’s about running a more sustainable business.
To unpack what they’re hearing, three JFCRx regional sales directors sat down for a roundtable discussion: Ben Allen (Southeast), Nancy Mlinarik (Midwest), and Rob Anderson (West). Between them, they spent the summer with hundreds of pharmacies across the country.
A few topics came up in nearly every conversation:
- Staffing pressure isn’t easing. Pharmacies are still short-handed, and hiring hasn’t caught up. The question has moved from “how do we hire more people” to “how do we do more with the team we have.”
- Cost to dispense is climbing. More pharmacies are tracking it, more are worried about it, and more are asking what levers actually move it.
- The cost of doing nothing. Owners are starting to weigh inaction as its own risk. Waiting another year to automate has a price, and more pharmacies are calculating it.
- Automation as redeployment, not replacement. The pharmacies making the boldest moves aren’t looking to cut staff. They’re looking to free their pharmacists and technicians to do higher-value work.
Why this matters now
The through-line across all of it: pharmacy success in 2026 isn’t measured only in scripts filled per hour. It’s measured in scalability, staffing stability, and profitability over the long haul.
That’s a different lens than the one most automation conversations started with a few years ago, and it’s changing what “the right investment” looks like. Ben, Nancy, and Rob get into what that shift means for pharmacies weighing their next move, and what they advise operators who ask them where to start.
Watch the roundtable
It’s a 20-minute conversation with three industry experts who spend every week in pharmacies across the country. Worth a watch if you’re thinking about where to invest next.
Want to talk through what this looks like in your pharmacy?