CVS Caremark's chief health care strategy officer today outlined how the company's integrated offerings -- retail pharmacy, pharmacy benefit management (PBM) and retail clinics -- are helping patients achieve better health by working to increase medication adherence and targeting behaviors to improve treatment for chronic diseases.
At the Wharton Health Care Business Conference, Innovation in a Changing Health Care Environment, Helena Foulkes, executive vice present and chief health care strategy and marketing officer, showed how CVS Caremark is developing innovative programs such as Pharmacy Advisor™ and expanding care for chronic diseases at MinuteClinic locations to provide personalized care that improves patient health outcomes, while working to better manage and reduce overall medical costs.
Foulkes participated on a panel focused on innovations in wellness and health care delivery. She said CVS Caremark has brought together retail pharmacy, retail clinics and PBM services to develop unique pharmacy care products. One example is Maintenance Choice, a program that allows customers to pick-up 90 day prescriptions at mail order costs whether they are shopping at retail or receiving medications through the mail. Foulkes said CVS Caremark is also expanding MinuteClinic, the nation's largest retail clinic recognized as a disruptive innovation in health care, because it offers convenient quality care at a fraction of the cost patients pay in other health care settings.
"These products and our business are real market innovations that are helping people on the path to better health," Foulkes said. "CVS Caremark has integrated three health care services to create a pharmacy innovation company. Our business model is unique and we reach patients in many different ways. But, if you stand back and look at everything we do – from pharmacists counseling patients about their medications to nurses monitoring patients' chronic diseases -- we do more every day to promote wellness than almost any company in the world," Foulkes said.
CVS Caremark employs more than 24,000 pharmacists and nearly 2,000 nurse practitioners and, between retail store and clinic visits and its PBM services, provides pharmacy health care to more than five million people every day, seven days a week. "We recognize the central role pharmacists play in delivering access to affordable, quality care and we are uniquely positioned to leverage the expertise of pharmacists and nurse practitioners to positively impact health outcomes and reduce costs," Foulkes said.
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