Walgreens And Rite-Aid: Dueling Chat Strategies

This column was written by Evan Schuman, the editor of StorefrontBacktalk, a site that tracks retail technology, e-commerce and security issues. Retail Realities appears every Friday. Evan can be reached at E-mail and on Twitter.

The moves-and different strategies-are especially interesting given how pharmacies today find themselves in arguably the most data-sensitive retail segment. This space has all of the usual retail privacy concerns and regulations, in addition to medical requirements such as the U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA).

Rite-Aid, which announced its plan first, on August 3, chose to limit its chatters to drug interactions and general recommendations based on generic knowledge plus whatever personal details the consumer opts to share during the chat. That's the safer and more conservative route, compared to what Walgreens announced three days later, on August 6. (Given how many months programs like this need to win legal and regulatory approval, the fact that the two chains launched and announced within 72 hours of each other shows how closely these rivals are shadow-boxing.)

Walgreens' more daring approach has some huge potential benefits. For example, what if a consumer asks about a particular drug interaction with an over-the-counter (OTC) sleep aid but forgets to mention a long-term prescription? With the ability to see that consumer's full list of medications, the pharmacist could spot a problem and potentially prevent a life-threatening combination. How much consumer loyalty is earned by a chat that proactively saves a patient's life?

The ability to add in OTC drug questions and information to consumers' databases is also medically valuable. It would allow their personal pharmacist in their local branch to flag OTC interactions, which those pharmacists otherwise would have little way of knowing (unless an eagle-eyed cashier happened to notice).

Privacy has been the most critical issue throughout retail this year, with reports discovering holes in the "private" settings of many major Web browsers as well as information that Apple Computer's iPhone may itself store as much of a year's worth of data representing every click that a user has typed on the iPhone. Even Best Buy opted to take a very cautious path on mobile check-in services.

Of course, the type of access Walgreens is attempting has huge potential problems, too. What if the consumer's computer uses a program that captures chat sessions, such as Google Desktop, and that consumer shares her machine with others? That very personal information exchange would wind up with someone else who has access to the computer.

Even worse, how much of a temptation is it to have employees with access to the medical history of every Walgreens customer nationally?

It's unclear what restrictions have been put in place at Walgreens. For example, the pharmacist chatters may be restricted to accessing the data of only the customer who is currently logged in and chatting. Even so, that is still a huge amount of very valuable information. Perhaps a divorce lawyer-or a potential employer-wants to know about a history of anti-psychotic medications or, for that matter, birth control prescriptions?

Unlike E-mail, which is not exactly a monument to secure communications, instant messages leave relatively unprotected footprints at various points on the Internet. Using these chats to discuss patient medical history is indeed daring.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

By Evan Schuman
Special to CBSNews.com