Walgreens to members: Embrace new health paradigm

Team-based healthcare models like accountable care organizations and medical homes are beginning to transform and at last integrate the nation’s sprawling health system.

In a presentation on opportunities to integrate community pharmacy into emerging care models like ACOs, Ron Weinert, VP healthcare solutions for Walgreens, urged NACDS members to embrace the new health paradigm and seize the opportunity it presents.

Ron Weinert, VP healthcare solutions for Walgreens, urges NACDS members to seize opportunities presented by the new healthcare paradigm.

“There still is a huge gap in primary care,” Weinert said. This gap, he added, “is causing a huge challenge in our country, but a huge opportunity for pharmacy because pharmacy can fill the gap and be that extender of care, working with the primary-care provider.”

The health system’s transition “away from fee-for-service to pay-for-performance,” Weinert said, means “pharmacy is no longer competing with primary care for … services like immunizations. When we’re working together to achieve performance in shared savings in an ACO world, then we have aligned incentives and we can work together.”