Digital tools play important role in patient experience, CVS Health Rx Report finds
Digital tools play an important role in enhancing the patient experience but patients and pharmacy teams also value personal interactions. This finding comes from CVS Health's latest Rx Report.
Noting that digital tools and technology are key for ensuring accessible, personalized and convenient pharmacy care, CVS Health said according to its 2024 Rx Report, a tech-enabled approach to pharmacy—powered by people—is important to the future of pharmacy.
Those surveyed agreed that a connected, digital pharmacy experience enhances the overall consumer experience. These findings underscore the importance of a pharmacy experience that prioritizes human connection and uses technology to enhance, not replace, the pharmacy team, CVS Health said.
In fact, the majority of Americans (70%) believe that in-person interactions with their pharmacy team are important and nearly half (48%) would likely switch their pharmacy if they were only able to interact with their pharmacist digitally. Pharmacists agree — 95% believe that in-person interactions with their patients are important to their care and outcomes.
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CVS noted that this is why it has enhanced and improved the digital pharmacy experience for patients through its CVS Health app, making managing, refilling, scheduling and picking up or getting prescriptions delivered easier for the 14 million active users who engage with the app. For specialty pharmacy patients, who are often managing complex medical conditions, CVS Health said it also offers the option of sending two-way, secure messages with their CareTeams, comprised of nurses and pharmacists. In fact, over 97% of active CVS Specialty patients prefer to receive digital messages.
This digital-first approach also helps create capacity for an expanded role for pharmacy—something both pharmacists and patients believe is important. In fact, the majority of community pharmacists (74%) want to perform clinical health care services beyond filling prescriptions and performing patient consultations. This is why community pharmacies like CVS Pharmacy are elevating the role of their pharmacists and pharmacy technicians in health care.
Technology that creates simplicity for patients also help optimize pharmacists’ time, since patients who use self-service digital tools for more routine tasks can reduce the pharmacy’s administrative call volume.
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Digital tools and technology can also help generate efficiency and support pharmacists. For example, solutions that support the pharmacy team’s experience, prioritize safety and create more efficiency in the workflow are key. "This includes innovations like our dynamic workload sharing model that leverages the scale of our community pharmacy footprint all working together, where allowed by state law. The ultimate goal: to help pharmacy teams spend more time on the personalized interactions that patients value, allowing for greater flexibility to provide clinical care such as immunizations, preventive care (where permissible) and chronic disease state management.
CVS Health said it is continuously innovating. "Our tech-enabled approach is key to ensuring a personalized, convenient and accessible pharmacy experience and supporting our pharmacy colleagues, so they can spend more time on what matters most: patient care," the company said.