'Communicator' award (once again) emphasizes pharmacy's role in health care

WHAT IT MEANS AND WHY IT'S IMPORTANT It matters most what big healthcare payers think of pharmacy and its role in health care. Perdue Farms has 22,000 employees, and operates more than 15 employee health-and-wellness centers. And chief medical officer Roger Merrill believes in pharmacists. He says they know more about drugs than he does.

(THE NEWS: NACDS names Roger Merrill 'Pharmacy Great Communicator.' For the full story, click here)

That big newspapers are finally starting to pick up on the language of "pharmacist as physician extender" is huge; that big payers like Perdue Farms are echoing these sentiments is even bigger than that.