Read time: 3 minutes
As part of our ongoing celebration of American Pharmacists Month, we recently sat down with Brad Myers, PharmD, MBA, Vice President, Health System Pharmacy Operations, Retail and Specialty Advisory Services for McKesson Health Systems (MHS) for another installment of our “From the Pharmacist” series, where we go “beyond the counter” and hear unique insights from the perspectives of industry experts who also happen to have backgrounds as health system pharmacists.
Brad began his professional career as a critical care pharmacist before transitioning to formal leadership roles within the health system space. Currently, Brad works on the MHS Professional & Advisory Services (P&AS) team, helping health system executives across the country better meet their strategic goals.
Find what Brad has to say about some of the current challenges facing health systems, how the pharmacist may help drive the adoption of new technologies in the healthcare space, and what potential shifts to watch for in the coming years.
MHS: What do you think are some of the biggest challenges members of the health system pharmacy team face today?
BM: In my opinion, there are two major challenges - and as I work with executives from across the country, these two challenges come up routinely and are pretty much number one and two in every health system that I work with. First is staffing shortages. Since the COVID pandemic, there have been severe staffing shortages. Initially, these were primarily for pharmacy technicians, which are critical to the operations of a pharmacy, whether it's acute care, within the hospital, or in the retail specialty infusion space. Now we're also seeing that transition to a shortage of pharmacists as well. So that's one key challenge we've got to overcome within the health system space.
The second is the financial pressures within health systems. There's been a rapid growth of pharmacy contribution to the health system space, and our pharmacy leaders are expected to continue that growth. However, there's a point where that sort of has a plateau in terms of the overall growth.
MHS: How may the role of a hospital pharmacist be different five years from now?
BM: Tough question. What I do see, in my thoughts, is that we are still going to see that continued focus on transition of care from the acute space – or the four walls of the hospital – to the ambulatory space. I think our pharmacy leaders across the country are looking at how we transition our patients safely – then, once those patients are in the ambulatory space, how do we keep them out of the hospital and thriving? I also feel there needs to be a continued focus on improving the clinical decision support and technologies, such as AI embedded with the electronic health records, because as patient care becomes more complicated and medications become more complicated, we have to learn how can we use our EHR and our data and combine that with AI to drive better outcomes for our patients.
MHS: What are the top one to three health system pharmacy developments or shifts you’d say to keep an eye on over the next couple of years?
BM: I think data AI is going to be an area that has to be exploited. In healthcare in general, we tend to be a little slower with data innovations (and I keep referencing AI and also machine learning as well), and part of that is due to the sensitivity of the data that we're working with. How we incorporate AI into our data strategies is important. We also need to continue looking at telepharmacy and remote care. I do feel as the payer market shifts, there's going to be heightened focused on remote care – so instead of bringing those patients into your hospital, even into your clinic, how can you manage those remotely, even in the comfort of the patient's own home at times? And then third, how do we adopt technology, primarily focused in on the operational and clinical efficiencies. I've started to see a lot of discussion about central fill and how we can automate certain parts of the operations. And that really plays two parts as well. One is staffing shortages as we mentioned earlier, as a challenge to healthcare and pharmacy in general. Technology can help overcome some of those staffing shortages. Second is that the technology can help overcome some of the growth that we're seeing as well.
MHS: So with those potential developments in mind – technology, data, and AI ML – what advice would you give health systems and pharmacy leaders going into the next few years?
BM: I feel like the traditional days of pharmacy are behind us, kind of in the rear-view mirror. As pharmacy as a profession becomes more aggressive, start thinking out of the box and develop programs that can drive value not only to our patients in terms of clinical care and clinical outcomes, but also to our health systems in terms of financial growth and stability. It’s our turn as the pharmacy to stay ahead of the curve, particularly with the ever-changing shift in the healthcare market.
To learn more about how partnering with McKesson’s P&AS team can help your health system achieve more for the business of pharmacy, contact us directly at pas@mckesson.com.
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