Show Watch

During the opening-day evening activities at Cardinal Health RBC 2017, the spotlight was on Pedro Vanga, owner of Super Farmacia Vanga Inc. in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Vanga was honored with the 2017 Ken Wurster Community Leadership Award — accepting a $10,000 donation from Cardinal Health on his behalf to local organization, Iniciativa Comunitaria.

As Cardinal Health RBC 2017 attendees listened at the tradeshow’s Opening Session on Thursday, July 27, the U.S. Senate was taking up the question of healthcare reform — something that Cardinal Health SVP of government relations, Sean Callinicos, highlighted as among the top three legislative issues that will most affect community pharmacists in the coming year. The other top issues for pharmacy that he addressed were increased drug prices and the opioid crisis.

On the tradeshow floor at Cardinal Health RBC 2017, the booth for the company’s innovation lab, Fuse, was staffed by Fuse engineers and healthcare innovation experts highlighting their work to develop solutions for the evolving pharmacy business, as well as fit pharmacists’ ever-changing needs.

At RBC 2017, Cardinal Health launched a new program that minimizes the complexities for a retail independent pharmacy to establish a CLIA-waived flu and strep testing service for their patients. The launch of such a service further emphasizes the emerging trend of direct patient-care services being offered in community pharmacy and the consumer-driven demand of accessing convenient healthcare services. For certain screenings, patients will no longer have to make a doctor’s appointment or schedule a visit with their local urgent care clinics.

NEW ORLEANS — McKesson ideaShare 2017 kicked off Thursday in the Big Easy, providing independent pharmacists a forum to discover new solutions and technology to grow their businesses and make them competitive. The annual conference and exhibition is set to offer attendees access to industry thought leadership, pharmacy programs, continuing education courses and networking opportunities to help improve their pharmacies’ performance.

Pharmacy owners who are retiring or getting out of the business often face the question of what to do with their pharmacy. The solution that preserves the community business, while continuing to serve their patients, is to find an independent pharmacist buyer — which can be a daunting process.

In the weeks leading up to Cardinal Health RBC 2017, DSN sat down with Cardinal Health’s director of reimbursement solutions Jeff Monroe to talk about the company’s latest Reimbursement Consulting Services (RCS) dashboard, as well as its Central Pay and Reconciliation customer platforms, and how these solutions are enabling pharmacies to better identify additional patient care opportunities, improve medication adherence and drive performance against the CMS Star Quality Measures.