Good Neighbor Pharmacy’s Brian Nightengale to serve as NACDS board chair
The National Association of Chain Drug Stores, or NACDS, welcomed new elected officers and board chair Brian Nightengale this week during the NACDS Annual Meeting in Palm Beach, Fla. Nightengale, who oversees Good Neighbor Pharmacy, succeeds Colleen Lindholz, president of Kroger Health, who completed her term and will remain on the NACDS Board of Directors.
“Brian Nightengale has engaged vigorously as a member of the NACDS Board of Directors on issues at the heart of our pro-patient, pro-pharmacy agenda,” said NACDS President and CEO Steve Anderson. “Particularly on issues related to reimbursement, he has helped to shape consensus on complicated topics that are highly consequential to the entire NACDS membership. We look forward to his leadership as chair of NACDS.”
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A pharmacist by training, Nightengale began his career “moonlighting in both independent and chain pharmacies,” and credits those experiences for embedding him with “a passion for the profession and for serving the community as a pharmacist.”
After a decade at pharmaceutical research consulting form Xcenda, Nightengale returned to his roots in 2016 to Good Neighbor Pharmacy, which is AmerisourceBergen’s flagship network of over 5,000 pharmacies across the U.S. and Puerto Rico.
In his address at the Annual Meeting, Nightengale thanked associate member companies and the supplier community for their work during the COVID-19 pandemic, noting the ways in which retail pharmacies and suppliers stepped up to serve the nation by innovating boldly and making the decisions necessary to deliver a new level of care and service to their communities.
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“I think it is safe to say that the American public now has a whole new appreciation for the important role that retail pharmacies play in meeting their health and wellness needs,” he said. “The magnitude of this industry-wide response is simply incredible when you look back at everything that has been accomplished over the past two years.”
Nightengale went on to say that retail pharmacy has earned the opportunity to secure and expand its role, including the potential to empower consumers with total health and wellness solutions. But evolving market dynamics and continued reimbursement pressure are having devastating impacts on pharmacies of all shapes and sizes.
Furthermore, changes within the healthcare industry, shifting consumer behaviors and an unprecedented level of legislative and regulatory activities will present new challenges for the industry and the pharmacy profession.
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Nightengale emphasized the association’s key priorities for the year, which will continue to include:
- Working to ensure fair and adequate pharmacy reimbursement “for the products we dispense and the care services we provide”;
- Expanding patients’ access to pharmacy-based care services “by leveraging the lessons learned and the undeniable impact our profession has had during this pandemic”;
- Ensuring that NACDS continues to serve members well into the future, “thinking creatively about the future role that NACDS members — and thus NACDS — should play in the total health and wellness journey of all Americans”; and
- Maximizing the return to in-person meetings and conferences so that members have the opportunity to collaborate and build the future of the industry.
"As we emerge from the pandemic and march onward toward the 90th anniversary of NACDS next year, we’re on the verge of permanently redefining how we serve our patients and consumers," Nightengale concluded. "But for that to happen, we must act, and that time is now.”