DSN discusses Vaccine Central with Rite Aid's Robert Thompson

NEW YORK — Rite Aid earlier this week introduced Vaccine Central, a multifaceted online platform designed to help raise awareness about vaccines and promote vaccinations. Drug Store News caught up with Rite Aid's Robert Thompson, EVP pharmacy, to discuss the impact Vaccine Central will have on raising immunization awareness. 

 

DSN: What are the key components of the Rite Aid Vaccine Central site that you launched this week?

 

Thompson: The purpose for the website is to provide consumers with a resource where they can go and get answers to their immunization questions. We don’t think anything like that exists, at least in the way that we’re putting it together. We recognized some time ago that consumers were often confused about vaccinations, about immunization requirements, and we really felt like with the decline in immunization rates in the United States, that we needed to do something about it. And that’s why we created Vaccine Central. 

 

So within [Vaccine Central], you can do a personal evaluation. You fill out personal information like age, gender, health condition, certain behaviors like do you smoke and if you know your vaccine history, you plug that in, and then [the site] gives a customized recommendation. The evaluation tool, you can do that for yourself or for anyone of your family members at your convenience anytime and determine what your immunization needs are. Once you do that, you print it out, you can take it with you to your Rite Aid pharmacy and talk to your Rite Aid pharmacist about it. Or you can take it to your physician and review it with your physician. It’s all about helping to educate consumers about the importance of getting immunizations, as well as debunking myths or concerns people may have about immunizations.

 

There’s very high-quality immunization information on the site. You can track your personal immunization history. You can look up immunizations by state, which are available at Rite Aid, [and] also the minimum age requirements. All of the consent forms are there, so if you decide to get a flu shot today, you’re ready for the pharmacy technician to process the information and get the pharmacist ready to process your shot. We think this is really cool because it’s available online, it’s available on mobile and of course in store we can access it as well. 

 

We’re just really excited that we’re not only doing something good for Rite Aid customers, we’re doing something really good for any consumer in the United States that might have a question about immunizations. Doctors are trying really hard to get people to get vaccinated. As part of the healthcare provider community, if we can help people get their immunizations either from a Rite Aid pharmacist or from their physician, we think we’re doing something good for the world.

 

DSN: How are people directed to the site?

 

Thompson: There’s advertising from our website, and we also have in-store materials supporting it. 

 

DSN: With 1-in-4 women getting their flu shot in the drug store environment, how are immunizations at pharmacy benefitting the overall healthcare system?

 

Thompson: I am glad you asked that question. Pharmacists nationwide have only in recent years been able to provide vaccinations. It’s been one of the greatest things to have happened to improve overall access to health care. If you think about 10 years ago, most people had to go to a doctor’s office or go to a public health clinic to be able to receive a vaccination. They weren’t able to walk in, they had to get an appointment. Community pharmacists have really rallied behind their clinical role in providing immunizations. I know our pharmacists have worked very hard to make it as convenient as possible for someone to get an immunization. Our pharmacists love being immunizers. They see themselves as providing not only a great customer service but a great clinical service. We just become more and more excited about our pharmacists being able to deliver important clinical services like this. 

 

Consumers are more and more comfortable with their pharmacist providing an immunization. They’ve had great experiences. If you think about the goals of healthcare reform — which is to improve quality, improve access and lower cost — immunization is perfect because having all of these pharmacists available to provide immunizations provides great access [and] it’s convenient. We’re delivering these vaccines all day every day. And we know that that’s helping to prevent disease. And if we prevent disease, we’re lowering overall healthcare costs, and we’re lowering the barriers to access. 

 

DSN: What is the key message to come out of the launch of Vaccine Central and the accompanying Rite Aid survey?

 

Thompson: As a pharmacist myself, what’s important to me is helping our communities improve their overall health. And immunization is one key way to do that. Every year, 50,000 adults die in the United States from a vaccine-preventable disease. That’s a true tragedy. So if you think about that and our role in improving overall community health, the key message here is that it’s a series of tools to raise awareness of vaccine-preventable diseases. We’re not only working with the customer who is coming into our stores, we’re also putting these tools out there that are easy for consumers to use to drive consumer awareness and engagement and help improve overall community health.