A new report conducted by Leavitt Partners, an HMA Company, underscores the value of pharmacist-provided clinical services in enhancing patient access and outcomes — and the importance of supporting pharmacy data interoperability so that more pharmacies have even greater abilities to provide expanded clinical services to the patients who rely on them.
The report – “Supporting Pharmacy Data Interoperability: An Imperative for Patient Access and Outcomes” – notes:
“To make the most of the pharmacy teams’ ability to serve patients and participate in value-based arrangements that maximize patient value, pharmacies need access to all relevant patient information and the ability to share relevant patient information with other stakeholders, including health systems, primary care providers, and patients. In short, pharmacies aiming to provide more clinical services need data interoperability.”
The study comes as part of the National Association of Chain Drug Stores’ (NACDS) “NACDS 2023” initiative. NACDS 2023 is the path for NACDS to ensure it continues to reflect – and to add value to – the innovation of the industry.
Specifically, NACDS 2023 keeps pharmacy at NACDS’ core, while adding to that core broader approaches to health and wellness. These broader approaches include members’ use of the total store, and partnerships with other healthcare professionals and destinations.
“We commend Leavitt Partners for their work in this important space — which is consistent with the Association’s bold ‘NACDS 2023’ commitments,” said NACDS President and CEO Steven C. Anderson. “Pharmacies are uniquely positioned to deliver convenient and equitable access to an array of critical clinical care services, including chronic care management, point-of-care testing, screenings, immunizations and more. NACDS is bringing an innovative approach to serving the membership as they transform pharmacy and bring a ‘total store, total person’ vision to health and wellness.”
The newly-released report demonstrates progress to date in pharmacy clinical data interoperability — including pharmacy use of clinical documentation systems, health information exchanges (HIEs), Pharmacist eCare Plans and standardized data application programming interfaces — as well as remaining challenges.
Importantly, the study also details measures that could help close the data interoperability gap, accelerate data interoperability and “enable pharmacies to provide greater access to clinical services at a time when more access is badly needed.”
The NACDS-funded report found that state and federal policymakers should take the following steps to strengthen pharmacy data interoperability:
- The Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) is taking a major step to support pharmacy data interoperability by creating and convening the Health Information Technology Advisory Committee (HITAC) task force on pharmacy interoperability. The ONC can further advance pharmacy data interoperability by maintaining fidelity to the broad definition of providers — including pharmacists and pharmacies — in implementing the Federal Health IT Strategic Plan.
- The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) should continue to encourage the inclusion of pharmacies in existing and emerging value-based care models. In doing so, CMS can incentivize pharmacies to invest further in data interoperability by enabling them to contribute to patient value and share in revenue as members of the interdisciplinary care team.
- State policymakers have the opportunity to support pharmacy data interoperability by advancing policies that support HIEs and their use by pharmacies, including cost-effective data integration of HIE data into pharmacy platforms for use at the point of care. State policymakers can also encourage pharmacy data interoperability indirectly by removing unnecessary limitations on the ability of pharmacy teams to provide clinical services that their patients need and that pharmacy teams are trained to provide.
The report also outlined recommendations for various stakeholders in the healthcare industry:
- Technology companies should continue to prioritize the development and implementation of cost-effective data-sharing solutions for pharmacies that promote the ability to seamlessly integrate with pharmacy dispensing systems and make clinical interventions at the point of care.
- Health plans should work with technology companies and pharmacy system vendors to standardize processes to share information to and from pharmacies by leveraging sustainable infrastructure — rather than building and deploying unique and fragmented pharmacy data-sharing platforms or other workarounds.
Other healthcare providers should ensure that their data exchange practices are consistent with the information sharing expectations established in the Cures Act’s Information Blocking rule, and should embrace existing standards when exchanging data with pharmacies. This will help ensure that services provided continue to be based on complete and current clinical records.
