Walk into the pharmacy on Main Street in the east-central Iowa town of Brooklyn, and it looks like any other small-town pharmacy — cold and flu remedies on the shelves, birthday cards for sale and two friendly pharmacy technicians working behind the counter.

Yet what makes the Brooklyn Pharmacy unique is what’s missing: the pharmacist.

An off-site pharmacist approves all the prescriptions before distribution using teleconferencing technology and consults one-on-one with patients on a touchscreen if they have any questions.

The Brooklyn...