Cultural Competence

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in collaboration with Walgreens, will help provide more than $10 million worth of free flu shot vouchers this flu season to improve flu immunization rates among uninsured Americans, Walgreens announced Thursday. Through the initiative, which is in its seventh year, Walgreens has provided more than $50 million worth of vouchers to communities across the country.

WOONSOCKET, R.I. - CVS Health on Wednesday announced the rollout of Project Health, its annual free health services campaign, at select CVS Pharmacy locations in 10 multicultural communities across the country. Beginning Thursday, Sept. 8 and running through Dec. 18, nearly $8 million worth of free health services will be delivered at more than 500 Project Health events.

Since 2006, Project Health has delivered more than $112 million worth of free health care services to nearly 872,000 people, many of whom are uninsured or underinsured.

As critics of the Affordable Care Act continue to grumble about how the law has adversely affected much of the nation’s healthcare system, consultant and Foundation for Health Smart Consumers fellow Mike Tarino said that giving people more control over how their healthcare dollars are spent could help quiet the critics and put what many see as a failing reform plan back on track.

Christina Speck, senior director of consumer initiatives at Aetna

Successfully offering consumer-centric health care requires a multi-pronged approach that meets the needs of a wide variety of customer groups, Aetna senior director of consumer initiatives Christina Speck stressed at the recent Retail Health Summit.

“One-in-4 people over age 45 in the United States is chronically lonely.”

VoicePort arrived in Boston for the National Association of Chain Drug Stores’ Total Store Expo this year with a new name for its suite of pharmacy technology offerings. The company rebranded its PharmaPhonetics property as CLARO Pharmacy Solutions — a name change aimed at highlighting the growth the company’s offerings have seen since starting out in 2003, according to VoicePort VP North American business development Alphonse J. Sasso.

WASHINGTON - U.S. adult obesity rates decreased in four states (Minnesota, Montana, New York and Ohio), increased in two (Kansas and Kentucky) and remained stable in the rest, between 2014 and 2015, according to The State of Obesity: Better Policies for a Healthier America, a report from the Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

This marks the first time in the past decade that any states have experienced decreases – aside from a decline in Washington, D.C. in 2010.