Innovation key to improving patient care, access

June 12, 2013 by Greg St. Martin

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Larry J. Merlo, pres­i­dent and CEO of CVS Care­mark, said on Tuesday morning at Northeastern’s CEOBreak­fast Forum that the chal­lenges pre­sented by America’s rapidly evolving health­care land­scape will require inno­v­a­tive solu­tions that lower costs and improve patient access to quality care.

Merlo said today’s health­care industry is grap­pling with chal­lenges ranging from meeting the needs of Baby Boomers to what he called the “epi­demic” of patients’ non-​​adherence to pre­scrip­tion med­ica­tion sched­ules. The Afford­able Care Act, he added, is con­stantly intro­ducing new ele­ments into the fold.

“All of the stake­holders in the system including con­sumers, employers, and hos­pi­tals, are expe­ri­encing levels of unprece­dented change,” said Merlo, the latest keynote speaker at Northeastern’s CEO Break­fast Forum series. Pres­i­dent Joseph E. Aoun hosts the events, where leading CEOs share their exper­tise with audi­ences of other CEOs and senior exec­u­tives from the Greater Boston area.

Pres­i­dent Joseph E. Aoun, right, greets Larry Merlo, pres­i­dent and CEO of CVS Care­mark, on Tuesday morning at Northeastern’s CEO Break­fast Forum.Photo by Brooks Canaday.

CVS Care­mark, Merlo explained, is dri­ving many inno­v­a­tive approaches to meet these health­care chal­lenges, par­tic­u­larly by rein­venting pharmacy’s role in the equa­tion. He detailed CVSCaremark’s Phar­macy Advisor Pro­gram, which helps patients manage the treat­ment of chronic dis­eases through a variety of resources such as coun­seling ser­vices and email noti­fi­ca­tions. He also pointed to Min­ute­Clinic, CVS Caremark’s retail med­ical clinics located in select CVS/​pharmacy stores nation­wide that Merlo said offer con­ve­nient, afford­able, high-​​quality care and ease the burden on hos­pi­tals treating non-​​emergency con­di­tions. Launched in 2000, there are now 650 Min­ute­Clinic loca­tions that have col­lec­tively treated 15 mil­lion patients.

“CVS Care­mark is uniquely posi­tioned to help stake­holders nav­i­gate the com­plex­i­ties of a changing health­care system,” said Merlo. He noted that the company’s resources and ser­vices are extending the front­lines of care for con­sumers, helping to alle­viate the primary-​​care physi­cian shortage, closing gaps in care, and improving med­ica­tion adherence.

In his intro­duc­tory remarks, Aoun high­lighted the long­standing rela­tion­ship between North­eastern and CVS Care­mark, par­tic­u­larly through part­ner­ships in the School of Phar­macy and School of Nursing in the Bouvé Col­lege of Health Sci­ences. CVS Care­mark cur­rently employs 278 alumni and nearly 700 stu­dents have com­pleted co-​​ops at CVS Care­mark since 2002. In addi­tion, 45 phar­macy stu­dents from the 2013 grad­u­ating class were placed at CVS Care­mark for their Advanced Phar­macy Prac­tice Experiences—intensive expe­ri­en­tial courses—during their final year in the Doctor of Phar­macy program.

“North­eastern grad­u­ates have cer­tainly demon­strated their lead­er­ship abil­i­ties among our work­force,” Merlo said.

Aoun noted how Northeastern’s inno­v­a­tive approach to higher edu­ca­tion through expe­ri­en­tial edu­ca­tion par­al­lels CVS Caremark’s novel approach to health­care solu­tions. “I was struck by the sim­i­lar­i­ties between the two,” he said.

During a question-​​and-​​answer ses­sion, Jack Reynolds, dean of the School of Phar­macy, asked Merlo to dis­cuss ways in which the school’s cur­ricula could inte­grate new ele­ments that align with the evolving health­care field. Merlo pointed to two areas of oppor­tu­nity: cus­tomer inter­ac­tion and the evolving nature of the phar­macy industry.

Describing the chal­lenges related to cus­tomer inter­ac­tion, Merlo told the story of a Min­ute­Clinic nurse prac­ti­tioner who noticed a high-​​school athlete’s heart murmur during a rou­tine phys­ical and directed the family to a spe­cialist. The boy’s mother ini­tially ques­tioned the finding, but the specialist’s later con­fir­ma­tion com­pelled her to write a warm letter to CVS Care­mark lauding the nurse practitioner’s careful attention.

“This is just one story about what is hap­pening out there every day, whether it’s a nurse prac­ti­tioner or a phar­ma­cist doing won­derful things that ulti­mately end up saving people’s lives,” Merlo said.

 http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2013/06/ceo-breakfast-larry-merlo/#sthash.TEGFj8WR.dpuf