How Can Pharmacies Close the Gap on Vaccine Uptake?

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to work in or around pharmacies. My first job in high school was in a pharmacy, and that experience is where I got a glimpse of the powerful connection between pharmacists and their patients. This led me to eventually pursue my pharmacy degree. After practicing, I transitioned to a business role to apply my skills in a different way—allowing me to influence patient care on a larger scale and advocate for my fellow pharmacists, people I had looked up to since I was 16-years-old, across the business.

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Part of the reason I wanted to become a pharmacist was seeing just how integral they were to patients’ everyday lives. This has never been more true than at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, during which pharmacists became the leading provider of COVID-19 vaccinations in the US.¹ And since then, we've seen their role as a trusted community medical professional flourish even further.² Combined with the fact that 90% of people in the US live less than 5 miles from a community pharmacy, it’s no surprise that they remain one of the top destinations for people to get vaccinated for COVID-19, the flu, shingles, and other preventable illnesses.³

Given their growing role as a community vaccine provider, pharmacists and the pharmacies they support are in a strong position to increase vaccination rates, educate patients on potential vaccines available, and address any questions related to vaccine hesitancy. To do this, pharmacies must fully embrace innovation because we know that technology and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions can provide patients with more personalized engagement—all while giving pharmacists more time in their day to operate at the top of their license.

THE RIGHT MESSAGE AT THE RIGHT TIME

One solution is patient engagement and omnichannel communications. Powered by machine learning and AI, omnichannel engagement enables "smart messaging" to help ensure patients receive compelling content when it's most convenient, in order to better inform them about medication or vaccines to effectively manage their health while minimizing opt-outs. Pharmacists can use what they learn from technology and AI-enabled tools to better understand gaps in patient vaccination needs and learn how to best engage patients in a way that resonates with them. For example, if a patient needs their annual flu shot this season but have not responded to numerous text reminders, pharmacy management systems have the power to alert the pharmacist so that they remind the patient one-on-one about the vaccine the next time they come in to pick up a prescription.

Having been in this industry more than 30 years, I’ve seen so many challenges and advancements when it comes to technology, but not nearly enough for what the industry needs. I truly believe that AI will be a critical part of what gets us where we have needed to be. However, that’s only q part of the solution.

REIMBURSEMENT MATTERS

The second piece of this puzzle is ensuring that reimbursement models align with the expanded scope of practice for pharmacists, supporting them in everything from vaccine administration to, eventually, testing and treatment, which is happening in some pilot programs across the country. If pharmacists are not able to be properly reimbursed for the additional training required to do things like testing and treating, there’s much less of an incentive for them to do it. This is important, not just for maintaining a critical vaccination resource in our communities, but also for addressing broader health care resource issues, like a lack of primary care providers and care deserts in rural areas.

Pharmacies are increasingly becoming a critical destination for health care. Much of that is due to the significant role pharmacists have taken in vaccination education and administration, especially at a time when there is heightened interest in vaccination around COVID-19, RSV, and more. Pharmacies are well suited to address this demand.

But they need to be equipped with the tools—like patient engagement and omnichannel communications—that meet patients where they are. They also need to ensure that pharmacists are properly supported—both from a reimbursement and resource perspective—so that they can dedicate their time to priority patient engagement. We’ve made a lot of progress on both of these fronts, but there is still more work to be done.

REFERENCES

1. The IQVIA Institute. Trends in Vaccine Administration in the United States. IQVIA. January 13, 2023. Accessed October 8, 2024. https://www.iqvia.com/insights/the-iqvia-institute/reports-and-publications/reports/trends-in-vaccine-administration-in-the-united-states

2. National Association of Boards of Pharmacy. Pharmacists ranked third most trusted medical professionals in 2023 Gallup survey. National Association of Boards of Pharmacy. March 22, 2024. Accessed October 8, 2024. https://nabp.pharmacy/news/blog/regulatory_news/pharmacists-ranked-third-trusted-medicalprofessionals

3. ASHP. Pharmacists As Front-Line Responders For COVID-19 Patient Care. ASHP. March 20, 2020. Accessed October 8, 2024. https://www.ashp.org/-/media/assets/pharmacy-practice/resource-centers/Coronavirus/docs/Pharmacist-frontline-COVID19