Expert: Community Pharmacists Key to Optimizing Care for Patients

In an interview with Pharmacy Times® at NACDS Total Store Expo, Rina Shah, SVP for pharmacy growth at Walgreens, discusses the role that community pharmacists play in optimizing care for patients. Shah also provides insights on the field garnered over her 25 years of experience at Walgreens.

Rina Shah, SVP, Pharmacy Growth at Walgreens: My name is Rina Shah. I am a pharmacist-by-training, so I have a doctorate in pharmacy from a while ago, and my current role is senior vice president for pharmacy growth at Walgreens.

Pharmacy Times®: Why is community-based pharmacy care so important?

Shah: Yeah, you know, if you'd asked me about a year ago, I would have been able to tell you, it's incredibly important to those patients that are in underserved communities, especially when there's a gap to access to care. But about a year ago was when I actually got diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma. And not only did I see it from a provider standpoint, as a pharmacist myself, but now as a patient, that was a high-need patient that really needed my pharmacy to play a role, it meant something completely different. When I wasn't feeling well, when I needed someone to advocate for me, with various physician offices, so on, so forth. There’s someone I could just trust and lean on that knew my care; it just meant something different. The meaning of community pharmacy has always meant a lot to me from being a community pharmacist, but now it demonstrates the impact that all of our pharmacies make across the country, and it's given me a renewed focus and a commitment to really allowing our pharmacists across the country to make an impact the way that my pharmacist made an impact for me.

Pharmacy Times: What are some lessons you've learned in your over 25 years of experience at Walgreens?

Shah: Yeah, I sound very old with over 25 years of experience at Walgreens. You know, one of the biggest things is that pharmacy is – although I've spent the majority of my career, if not my professional and personal life, in pharmacy – it's constantly changing. The ability to innovate and drive what future pharmacy care could look like continues to be something that we all strive for, our north star. And the great thing is, is that technology changes, our clinicians change, even the way that we practice might evolve, but what is at the heart of it is that we're all trying to make it better for our fellow patients. I've seen a lot of change, but then I've also seen the foundational principles always stay the same.

Pharmacy Times: How can we further innovate community pharmacy to optimize care for patients?

Shah: The biggest thing is, you know, really embracing technology, automation, digitization, what we can do, what that future state looks like. For me, convenience, if you asked me 10 years ago, was very different, which was a pharmacy in every corner. Now, for me convenience is being able to talk to my pharmacist, establish a relationship with my pharmacy team, but then have them at my fingertips in my house, on my phone, that's accessible. The future of pharmacy, and really where pharmacy can go, is really embracing the technology and the innovation that's happening so that we're smarter about how we manage pharmacy services, or even just dispensing medication better than we ever have in the past.