Today’s guest post comes from John Miall, RxAlly’s VP and National Practice Leader

Taking the Asheville Project to the Next Level

There is an ancient Chinese saying to the effect, “May you live in exciting times.” Do we ever! Pharmacists are fundamentally redefining who and more importantly what they are about.

There is an ancient Chinese saying to the effect, “May you live in exciting times.” Do we ever! Pharmacists are fundamentally redefining who and more importantly what they are about.

When I think back to the original “Asheville Project”® I am amazed at what has transpired. The change in the pharmacist’s world in my lifetime had been tremendous. The Asheville Project was one of several pivotal events in the last fifteen years in the profession. We now have years of proven efficacy for pharmacists to engage patients in new ways, and to more fully collaborate with treating physicians. But, the best is yet to come.

Several years ago I spoke with a pharmacy school dean and asked him, “When do we stop pilotingAsheville, and it simply becomes the norm?” He answered wisely that we will always have to ‘pilot.’ “People inPeoria will want to know if it will work here.”

Yes, and no. “Yes” the movement will always have to prove itself. Proving the efficacy of what pharmacists do and its value to the system is not easy, but it’s an important part of what pharmacists can do to improve the system. There is nothing wrong with being able to prove their value. In fact, it largely sets them apart.

But, “no” is the answer to ‘will we always have to pilot.’ We are now at the time when the stars and planets have aligned to begin the final push to make pharmacists more than just pill counters.

One of the great challenges has been to demonstrate scale. Over the years, I have worked with many initiatives coming out of The Asheville Project. At every step “scale” was the objective. There have been successes, but much remains to be done.

A couple of years ago I sat in the corporate offices of a large global manufacturing company with thousands of lives in multiple locations throughout theUnited States. After 18 months of intensive discussions, the company seemed interested in embracing a program to deliver Asheville-type care. In the end, the company decided to buy a more expensive system for disease management – one with no proven efficacy.

The reason was scale. The manufacturing company needed scale to assure that the employees at headquarters would have the same level of benefit as people working in remote home offices across the country.

Enter, RxAlly. RxAlly, and its Performance Network of pharmacists represents much more than just a nationwide footprint, it represents an unprecedented opportunity to move us as a nation to an almost seamless health care delivery system.

Imagine a health care delivery system where pharmacists alongside doctors, nurses, nutritionists, educators and others work in tandem with their sole focus to be on improving the health of the patient.

Imagine pharmacists first and foremost dispensing advice and knowledge, and not just pills and ointments.

RxAlly is the best opportunity to achieve the change pharmacists have sought. To my many pharmacist friends out there….we truly do live in exciting times.

Today’s guest post comes from our Vice President of Product Development, Michael H. Taday, regarding RxAlly’s product offerings.  

Preferred Network, Consumer and Clinical Product Offerings

We have all seen the numbers; $290 billion in avoidable health care dollars, 50% patient medication adherence rates, U.S. spending 16% of GDP on health care and ranking far below those of the world leaders. Our patients, providers, and payers need the practicing pharmacists and pharmacy leadership to step up and help create the solution to the health care crisis we are faced with today. 

RxAlly has the framework and a collaborative team of innovators to attack this problem head-on, but where do we start? RxAlly’s three guiding principles, Alignment, Personalized Care, and Performance, will steer the entire portfolio of product offerings. RxAlly envisions products in three main areas:

RxAlly will create preferred networks with a detailed protocol of offerings meant to target patients with specific needs, such as specialty life saving medications and compounded products. It is also our intention to take advantage of each and every touch point you have with your patients in order to create a trusting and loyal relationship between patient and pharmacist (coach). The Asheville Project has proven that pharmacist-driven disease state management is a cost-effective methodology to harvest sustainable patient outcomes. RxAlly will adopt this approach and help to expand it. 

Consumer Engagement

As the aforementioned numbers show, patients are not yet fully engaged in owning and managing their health. To date, the prospect of living a longer, healthier life has not been a large enough value proposition for most patients. Behavioral change is a must and RxAlly will find patient-centric ways of creating, delivering, and capturing value. RxAlly will produce products and services with the features that matter most to our patients and allow us to create life-long relationships with them. The pharmacists within the RxAlly Performance Network are at the epicenter of the outcome-focused delivery strategy. They will be trained to deliver clinical and professional service offerings, primarily chronic disease state management, preventative services, and lifestyle change coaching. The overarching goal is to create a core for capturing and reinforcing actions and translating those into measurable, sustainable, and meaningful outcomes.

Easy to Implement

It is critical that these offerings yield the desired outcomes, but do not put a significant strain on the limited time our pharmacists have available in the community setting. Creating a value proposition for the pharmacist is just as important as creating one for the patient. It is our goal to create desirable product offerings that are simple to integrate into your pharmacy and specific to your local health care landscape and patient population. Products will have regional or national reach.  

RxAlly will ensure that all of our network pharmacies are well equipped with the training materials, equipment, and ongoing support they will need to assure successful implementation of the entire product portfolio.

Look for more information about specific product launches in the coming months.

More evidence that our industry is at a crossroads, from one of the most influential players within it. This, from Chain Drug Review:

“I’m not dissing retail, but there’s a fiction that a pharmacist comes out and dialogues with you. In reality, a high school student hands you a script from the shelf.”

- David Snow, Medco Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Get ready for a new reality, Mr. Snow.  RxAlly is all about personalized care…

The overwhelming support and enthusiasm for RxAlly has been encouraging.  As I’ve shared with those of you with whom I’ve spoken over the last few days, our industry is currently at a crossroads.

We have those who see the future of pharmacy as one that takes a greater role in improving the health of our patients and driving down costs for all, via greater interactivity with our patients and their doctors.  And, there are those who seem intent on going down the same old road: Pharmacy siloed from the rest of health care…those who see medicine as widgets, like a bolt or a screw.

Last week, George Paz, CEO and Chairman of Express Scripts, said to a group of analysts, “At the end of the day, Nexium is Nexium, Lipitor is Lipitor, drugs are drugs, and it shouldn’t matter who’s counting to 30.”

This is the very mentality that has generated the $290 billion dollar crisis highlighted in research published by the New England Health Care Institute (NEHI) and showcased recently in the Surgeon General’s report.

RxAlly aims to take the profession of pharmacy, its like-minded pharmacists, and the management of prescription benefits down a different path than Mr. Paz’s.

Again, it’s gratifying to hear from so many of you, expressing your personal motivations to help RxAlly make a difference in our health care system and the patients we serve.

You may be wondering what makes the RxAlly Performance Network different from other pharmacy programs.  In a nutshell, our founding principles of Alignment, Performance and Personalized Care.

What does this mean?

RxAlly is a first-of-its-kind.  We have brought together more than 20,000 pharmacies nationwide, all united to help patients achieve better health through personalized pharmacist care while reducing costs.   Never before have so many pharmacies come together, all focused on the same goal.

Performance.   RxAlly is unique in that our pharmacies and pharmacists are so committed to ensuring that their efforts will result in improved patient health and lower costs, that they are willing to be held accountable for it.  If they do not perform – they will not remain within this aligned, improvement-focused network.

And Personalized Care.   We know that patients see their pharmacists 12 to 14 times per year – more than any other health practitioner.  Pharmacists are among the most accessible health care providers and are at a key intersection to assist in coordination of patient care.  However, they are remarkably underutilized in our healthcare system given their level of education and specialized training.

In the RxAlly Performance Network, pharmacists will assume greater interactivity with their patients. They will coach and customize care plans that meet the needs of every individual.   They will work with patients and/or their caregivers on the coordination of refills; reconciliation of medications – both prescription AND over the counter; immunizations like flu shots and other adult and adolescent immunizations; blood pressure and other health tests; making sure patients understand the importance of taking their medicines correctly; prevention and wellness education; and customized programs for chronic disease management.

RxAlly is advancing the role of the pharmacist, which will improve people’s health and drive down costs for everyone.  We are all very excited for RxAlly pharmacists, patients and the payer community.  We are confident the outcomes will be remarkable and are looking forward to sharing them with you.

Today is an exciting day for America and the future of health care in our nation. After years of planning, lots of hard work, and incredible collaboration, today, we introduced RxAlly.   RxAlly is the first-of-its-kind alliance of more than 20,000 pharmacies nationwide, united to help patients achieve better health through personalized pharmacist care while reducing costs.

At a time when prescription medicine misuse is associated with $290 billion in annual costs, the RxAlly network of pharmacies aims to improve patient health through enhanced pharmacist care that combines clinical research, evidence-based clinical practices and an interoperable technology platform.

There is a need for greater access to primary care for patients throughout the U.S.   To address this challenge, RxAlly was developed to advance the role of community pharmacists to one that leverages their extensive education and training, better equips them to interact with patients and improve patient health, and lowers costs.

The thousands of RxAlly pharmacies will be part of a “Performance Network” that aims to make measurable difference for patients, pharmacists and payers through personalized pharmacist service, evidence-based clinical practices and shared technologies.

The RxAlly Performance Network will include pharmacies that demonstrate patient-centric delivery of service and an interest in optimizing health outcomes.  At launch, this select network is comprised of thousands of independent pharmacies, numerous regional chains and Walgreens, the nation’s largest pharmacy chain.

With 20,000 pharmacies already participating nationwide – including thousands of independents stores, numerous regional chains, and Walgreens, the nation’s largest chain, no doubt The RxAlly Performance Network will be coming to your neighborhood soon.  Watch for us.  We can’t wait to meet you!