Vaccines remain one of the most cost-effective methods for boosting healthcare. Community pharmacies, with the pharmacists and community health workers they employ, play important roles in closing any vaccine gaps.

Community pharmacies increasingly offer healthcare services to patients, especially in underserved regions. This provides them an opportunity to take part in various medical initiatives, including those related to brain health.

In its simplest definition, deprescribing involves reducing the number of prescribed medications for a specific patient. The reasons for this reduction are numerous. Perhaps the patient no longer receives any benefit from a certain drug? In other cases, prescribing too many medications might even cause harm to the patient.

The Rural Health Transformation (RHT) Program aims to strengthen healthcare provided to rural regions across the United States. The federal government created this program to improve access to health services in these traditionally underserved areas.

The MOMS: Medications Optimizing Maternal Safety™ program aims to improve maternal-infant health in Mississippi. It achieves this goal by leveraging community pharmacies to expand care into the state’s regions lacking meaningful healthcare resources.

To achieve health equity, especially in vulnerable populations, healthcare needs to be delivered on the street, in the neighborhood, on the porch, in the living room, or around the kitchen table.

The world of U.S. healthcare is moving to value-based care and providing that care equitably. Pharmacy can lead that move, as no one is closer to the patient than their pharmacist. It’s not easy. Sometimes it feels like going through Hell. Keep the faith. Keep going.

Healthcare needs to go beyond any clinic or pharmacy walls. It needs to go to public gatherings, onto porches, and into living rooms. We need to help people where they live, not just where we work.

While healthcare analytics might add efficiencies, they too often fail to address what truly matters: patient health.

Community health workers play a critical role by helping lonely patients feel connected.