KOL Collaboration Series: Enhancing Pharmacy Resilience

In a video interview with Pharma Commerce, John Stefankiewicz, VP of Analytics, Cencora, explained that pharmacy deserts are increasingly prevalent due to the ongoing closure of pharmacies, which affects community access to essential healthcare services. In urban areas, the nearest pharmacy may be difficult to reach due to barriers like highways and inadequate public transport. In rural regions, residents may need to travel significant distances, sometimes 20 miles, only to find pharmacies closed after work hours. Pharmacies serve as critical points of care, especially during peak seasons for illnesses like flu, emphasizing the necessity of local access to pharmacists for timely prescription filling and healthcare support.

Pharmacy deserts are increasingly prevalent due to the ongoing closure of pharmacies, which affects community access to essential healthcare services. In urban areas, the nearest pharmacy may be difficult to reach due to barriers like highways and inadequate public transport. In rural regions, residents may need to travel significant distances, sometimes 20 miles, only to find pharmacies closed after work hours. Pharmacies serve as critical points of care, especially during peak seasons for illnesses like flu, emphasizing the necessity of local access to pharmacists for timely prescription filling and healthcare support. There is also a need for advocacy to enhance pharmacy reimbursement and ensure long-term viability. Stefankiewicz highlighted the ability to quickly develop and test solutions across different regions, adapting to legislative changes. The conversation also addresses the issue of pharmacy deserts, noting that closures affect both access and operational challenges for remaining pharmacies. A specific example illustrates how a rural pharmacy absorbed patients from a closed chain store, revealing the diverse challenges pharmacies face, including staffing and service mix. Overall, the focus is on collaborative solutions to support pharmacies in underserved areas.

A transcript of Stefankiewicz’s conversation with PC can be found below.

PC: What types of solutions are needed to support pharmacists and future-proof the resiliency of pharmacies?

Stefankiewicz: Advocacy is really going to be one of the areas that opens up pharmacy reimbursement, which is critical for their viability long term. On top of that, our scope allows us to build and test solutions very fast. Our scale allows us to test these solutions across geographies. So as one state legislates certain rules, we can apply that, see what the results of that are, and even almost advocate on behalf of the pharmacy in other areas—either at the state, local, or federal level. That’s the beauty of how we're looking at pharmacy deserts, and how we're looking to solutions. On top of that, pharmacy deserts, and the solutions required at the pharmacy level, is very diverse. We think about pharmacy closures and the viability of pharmacy, but pharmacy deserts also impact that pharmacy that's still open.

We were talking to a pharmacist and a pharmacy owner, where the chain store in the rural area— already in a pharmacy desert—closed, and they were left filling all those scripts from that chain pharmacy. Things like staffing, pharmacy mix—those are the solutions that they're turning to us to partner with them to help solve. That blew my mind, because we've been thinking about it as low access, but a lot of the GNP [Good Neighbor Pharmacy] stores are onboarding these new patients from other areas, other stores, and other chains that are closing. It just goes back to the diverse set of solutions available to the pharmacies.