Grocery store chain Hy-Vee opened its first Hy-Vee Health infusion clinic, located at 7300 Westown … [+]
Retailers, grocers and drugstores are transforming with more pharmacy services – from infusion suites to state-of-the-art cold storage for the latest prescriptions – to accommodate the increasing number of specialized drugs patients are prescribed.
Companies say pharmacies – from those run by corner drugstores and grocers to outpatient clinics and big box retailers – are becoming more equipped to serve a variety of complex patient prescription needs.
Part of the trend is driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, where retail pharmacies and grocery stores became the go-to locations for vaccinations and diagnostic tests. CVS Health, for example, has administered more than 86 million Covid-19 vaccines and more than 59 million Covid-19 tests at pharmacies and long-term care facilities since the start of the pandemic while Walgreens, which said it added “ultra-cold freezers to store large quantities of doses of the Pfizer vaccine” has administered nearly 80 Covid-19 vaccines and more than 35 million tests since the pandemic’s start.
But more broadly, pharmacies are preparing for the coming wave of emerging complex drugs derived from biotechnology that treat everything from autoimmune diseases and cancer.
Gone are the days when pharmacies dispensed prescription pills, tablets and capsules as the bulk of their business. Today pharmacies handle medications that require injection, infusion by staff that often needs specialized training and licensure.
Take the Hy-Vee grocery store chain, which has operated retail pharmacies for more than 50 years at more than 275 locations across eight Midwestern states, last month opened its first Hy-Vee Health infusion clinic in West Des Moines, Iowa. The infusion clinic, which requires a medical care provider referral, provides treatments for “rheumatology, gastroenterology, pulmonary, neurology, dermatology, oncology and other chronic conditions,” the company said.
Hy-Vee President Aaron Wiese during this week’s Asembia Specialty Pharmacy Summit the freestanding clinic is staffed by licensed physicians and nurse practitioners and features three private infusion rooms and five group infusion suites.
The independent clinic, which operates under the Hy-Vee Health brand “is an affordable, convenient and accessible option for patients who face chronic and complex conditions,” Wiese said. (We want) to provide convenient, cost-effective health solutions for patients across the United States.”
Executives say pharmacies will continue to add more services to meet patient needs. By integrating more services, it helps keep costs under control when the healthcare system is less fragmented.
Less than three months ago, for example, health insurance giant Elevance Health, which operates Blue Cross and Blue Shield health plans in 14 states, closed on its acquisition of BioPlus, a specialty pharmacy.
Bioplus CEO Mark Montgomery said the integration of the specialty pharmacy into the larger healthcare services and benefits under the Elevance Health umbrella are part of a strategy to treat the whole health of the person.
This is important because taxpayers, government health insurers and companies are spending more on pricey specialized prescription drugs. Last year, for example, specialty prescription spending for U.S. employers was 49% of total pharmacy costs, according to the big benefit consultancy Mercer.
Pharmacies are expected to only add additional services, which the community has embraced, according to a new report from the Milken Institute Center for Public Health
“Regardless of an emergency or steady-state condition, communities rely on the pharmaceutical supply chain to deliver high-quality medications to the right customer at the right place and time,” said Sarah Wells Kocsis, director of the Milken Institute Center for Public Health. “Pharmacies – chain, independent, specialty – and pharmaceutical distributors across the country have taken an expanded role in community healthcare. Their abilities to adapt to the challenges of the public health emergency and meet unprecedented demand was due, in large part, to their ability to mobilize financial and human resources in innovative ways, leverage their position as trusted, decentralized health access points, and go the ‘last inch’ to reach patients, while actively addressing the health needs of the communities they serve