Graduation award for SBM student Regina Voss

Science and Business Management student Regina Voss has won the NEVI graduation prize with her thesis on her business internship. The prize comes with a cash prize of 1,500 euros. Voss researched for insurer a.s.r. how they can best relate to the emerging online pharmacies. These are pharmacies that work with home delivery and without a local branch.

The choice of this project was not entirely coincidental, as Voss earned her bachelor's degree at the College for Pharmaceutical Sciences. She was therefore also looking for a project at a health insurer. At a.s.r. she was not only welcome, she also got to choose her own topic. That resulted in a study on how the insurer can best deal with the new phenomenon of online pharmacies.

Voss had expected online pharmacies to be seen as an advance, but that turned out not to be the case for all stakeholders. Her analysis of three scenarios showed that the physical pharmacy is also an indispensable link in the patient's healthcare network. This involves, for instance, consulting with the GP and advising and informing the patient. This is why one half of the patients benefit from an online service, but the other half do not.

Voss herself had not counted on the prize, as Tilburg University has a separate procurement management program and was therefore a strong competitor. But thanks to the combination of qualitative and quantitative research, the socially relevant topic and good readability and reflection, she won anyway. She herself missed the award ceremony due to a holiday, but her supervisor Prof Fredo Schotanus did the honours.