PillPack, the online pharmacy acquired by Amazon last year, has new employees undergo a half hour of empathy training that includes sorting pills while wearing oversized gloves and thick prescription glasses, according to CNBC.
PillPack's business started with a focus on senior citizens who often take a dozen medications at a time. Many of its current customers have reduced vision, are hard of hearing or struggle with mobility.
The company specializes in delivering pills to patients in a simple, presorted package so they don't have to struggle with multiple pill bottles or confusing directions. The pills are then shipped to the patient's door.
The empathy training at the pharmacy aims to help new hires understand what it is like to be a typical PillPack customer.
For the training, employees sort dozens of pills into a box, while simultaneously parsing through vague instructions of when the pills needed to be taken. To add to the challenge, the pill-sorting activity was timed, and employees wore oversized gloves to restrict mobility and thick glasses to mirror poor eyesight.
Employees undergoing the timed pill-sorting test were reminded that an unintended misstep, like a discarded pill on the carpet, could lead to consequences, including a patient not taking the medicine or having the pill eaten by a pet or grandchild, according to the report.
PillPack introduced the optional empathy training in early 2018. The company came up with the idea to help younger employees who don't take medications understand the needs of its customers.
"We can't ship a service that meets the physical and emotional needs of our user if we don't have the empathy at the root of what we do," Lexi Borbostina, PillPack's user researcher, who started at PillPack as the first community manager in 2015, told CNBC.
Read the full report here.