Pharmacy deserts are leaving thousands across the U.S. with limited or no access to pharmacy services, which is greatly contributing to the growing healthcare disparity. One in seven Americans is without easy access to a pharmacy, meaning they have a lengthy drive to pick up their medication. This trend is occurring in both rural and urban areas.
In rural areas specifically, the nearest pharmacy for some residents might be 20 miles away. Many of the pharmacies that do exist are facing severe challenges, including staffing shortages, insurance reimbursement issues and declining margins. As a result, there are delays in medication access, non-adherence to treatment plans and overall, more negative health outcomes that can lead to chronic or constant illnesses.
In urban areas, pharmacy deserts often appear in low-income neighborhoods. Large pharmacy chains don’t operate in these areas in large part due to the potential of lower profits, among other factors. This lack of pharmacy and healthcare access for these populations can create chronic health conditions that could be avoided.
Centralized fulfillment plays an essential role in decreasing the impact of pharmacy deserts, with the potential to reshape pharmacy access and improve the quality of life and health outcomes for many.
So, how can central fulfillment help lessen this burden?
Central fulfillment can streamline pharmacy workflows, which could increase pharmacists’ dispensing volume, allowing them to facilitate fulfillment more efficiently. Processing prescriptions through central fulfillment can also benefit pharmacies in the cost department. Pharmacies with central fulfillment have the potential to reduce overhead, which could save money and make it more feasible to operate in less profitable areas.
By automating the most routine pharmacy tasks, central fulfillment can help with the increasing staff shortages pharmacies across the U.S. are experiencing. This freed-up time allows pharmacists to focus on patient-facing services like vaccinations, counseling and medication therapy management, critical services to populations in pharmacy deserts.
Central fulfillment creates a model aimed at filling prescriptions efficiently at scale; patients can then pick up the centrally filled medications at their local store or in some cases receive them by mail.
Central fulfillment is a model that bridges the gap between patients living in pharmacy deserts and their medications. Ultimately, addressing pharmacy deserts requires innovative, scalable infrastructure, and central fulfillment can be an important factor in making pharmacy care more accessible, equitable and efficient for everyone, everywhere.
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