Connecting Unused Drugs, Uninsured Patients
Seven years ago, a group of Stanford students realized that a tremendous amount of medicine was being wasted and that it could help uninsured patients.
Their idea has grown into a nonprofit that helps health care centers and drug companies donate unused prescriptions to pharmacies that then supply uninsured patients.
In redistributing the medicines, the startup - Supporting Initiatives to Redistribute Unused Medicine, or Sirum - not only helps those needy and poor patients but reduces the environmental hazards of incinerating or otherwise destroying the unexpired drugs.
Michael Short / Special to the Chronicle - George Wang scans bar codes on medicine packages at the office of Supporting Initiatives to Redistribute Unused Medicine, started by Stanford University students.
I think this is a fantastic idea and a great way to help keep soaring medical costs under control. If we are able to get enough prescription drugs to the people that need them via a redistribution model such as this, it could have quite an impact on the costs of providing health care to uninsured patients.