H-E-B’s Otto brings insights to World Health Congress
Martin Otto, H-E-B COO and past chairman of the National Association of Drug Stores took to the World Healthcare Congress to share his thoughts on the role healthcare spending plays in creating suboptimal patient outcomes. Otto participated in a keynote panel at the event titled “Call to Action: Collaborate and Mitigate Social Determinants of Health to Improve U.S. Health Care.”
“I am here in three capacities,” Otto said. “I am here representing an employer and payer, with frustration over a lack of progress on the topics that are the subject of this panel discussion. I am here representing pharmacy, which — if further empowered — can serve even more as part of the solution. And I am here as a concerned citizen, because what we are leaving our kids is not going to be pretty if we don’t collaborate and act on this.”
Otto, in the panel and an interview that was live-streamed during the event, focused on how healthcare spending sits at the center of a cycle that creates poor health and more healthcare spending over time.
“The challenge that we face is that we’re in this vicious socioeconomic cycle where high health care costs — which are dramatically more than in other nations and exceed where other nations are by $1 trillion relative to GDP — causes funding to be crowded out for poverty programs and for public education, which in turn breeds more poverty and poor education, which in turns breeds more poor health care and high spending,” he said. “That’s a cycle that has to be arrested in my view, and healthcare spending is the linchpin.”
Among the solutions Otto proposed, besides the continued involvement of employers to focus on health — he presented a session or employers about how employers can make well-being a priority alongside H-E-B group vice president of Total Rewards Brook Brownlow — was pharmacy, which he said is a front-line player in improving health.
“Pharmacies in many cases are the primary point of health care for many patients particularly in areas where a physician may not be as accessible,” Otto said. “Pharmacies today are within 5 miles of 90% of the American population and many folks come to pharmacies as their first point of care.”
NACDS said that Otto’s participation was in line with its Access Agenda, a thought leadership platform highlighting that pharmacists provide policy solutions as well as health-and-wellness solutions in their communities.
“I am here in three capacities,” Otto said. “I am here representing an employer and payer, with frustration over a lack of progress on the topics that are the subject of this panel discussion. I am here representing pharmacy, which — if further empowered — can serve even more as part of the solution. And I am here as a concerned citizen, because what we are leaving our kids is not going to be pretty if we don’t collaborate and act on this.”
Otto, in the panel and an interview that was live-streamed during the event, focused on how healthcare spending sits at the center of a cycle that creates poor health and more healthcare spending over time.
“The challenge that we face is that we’re in this vicious socioeconomic cycle where high health care costs — which are dramatically more than in other nations and exceed where other nations are by $1 trillion relative to GDP — causes funding to be crowded out for poverty programs and for public education, which in turn breeds more poverty and poor education, which in turns breeds more poor health care and high spending,” he said. “That’s a cycle that has to be arrested in my view, and healthcare spending is the linchpin.”
Among the solutions Otto proposed, besides the continued involvement of employers to focus on health — he presented a session or employers about how employers can make well-being a priority alongside H-E-B group vice president of Total Rewards Brook Brownlow — was pharmacy, which he said is a front-line player in improving health.
“Pharmacies in many cases are the primary point of health care for many patients particularly in areas where a physician may not be as accessible,” Otto said. “Pharmacies today are within 5 miles of 90% of the American population and many folks come to pharmacies as their first point of care.”
NACDS said that Otto’s participation was in line with its Access Agenda, a thought leadership platform highlighting that pharmacists provide policy solutions as well as health-and-wellness solutions in their communities.