Value-Based Pharmacy

At RxLive, we see the pharmacist’s role as more than just a medication dispenser. Our pharmacist team has a passion to leverage their deep pharmacy knowledge and expertise to make a difference in people’s lives. 

Integrating clinical pharmacists into the healthcare team creates significant financial and clinical value for patients and organizations. Implementing and maximizing this value is a discipline we call Value-Based Pharmacy

The history behind Value-Based Pharmacy

As pharmacists have become more involved in quality and value-based programs, there’s an emerging set of best practices that have been shown to drive financial, clinical and satisfaction value for both patients and organizations.  

Real-world medication use differs from patient to patient. Medication management strategies need to be tailored to a patient’s individual behavioral, clinical, genomic and social factors. The ability to scale this patient-centered approach at the population level requires both flexibility and customization.  

Pharmacist involvement has shown to improve health outcomes in CHF patients, patients with diabetes and patients with hypertension. Pharmacists also play a key role in decreasing hospital admission and readmission rates and improving medication adherence. The bottom line is that there are many studies that show just how valuable pharmacists can be in improving patient health.  

What is Value-Based Pharmacy?

Value-Based Pharmacy isn’t just a clinical discipline. It’s also a practical one that balances the complex blend of clinical, behavioral and cultural factors at both the patient and organizational level. Understanding these factors is key to successfully unlocking the value that pharmacists can bring to a care team.

Pharmacists can be an integral part of a healthcare team committed to improving health, reducing adverse and avoidable medical events and saving people money. They do this through the unique power, knowledge and insights of clinical pharmacists as part of a patient-centered, collaborative-care model. 

With the bar rightly being raised to deliver true value-based care, clinical pharmacists’ knowledge is invaluable in evaluating the impact of the ever-expanding volume of prescriptions and over-the-counter meds, the effects of supplements, nutrition and the impact of each person’s genetics. This knowledge enables pharmacists to sit at the nexus of effective medication use that helps enable optimum health, minimizes avoidable side effects and saves money. Pharmacists are uniquely qualified to act as patient advocates in the still-fragmented and highly specialized healthcare industry. 

To expand the practice of Value-Based Pharmacy is the reason RxLive was formed. There are too few expert clinical pharmacists in the U.S. to have one for every practice or other healthcare provider organization, large or small. RxLive is here to be an expansion of providers’ on-site teams to deliver coordinated, personalized care where and when it’s needed.

If you’re interested in learning more about how Value-Based Pharmacy can help your practice, please call us at 1-866-234-4974. 

Kristen Engelen, PharmD
Kristen Engelen, PharmD, is the chief pharmacy officer of RxLive and a certified consultant pharmacist; she has over a decade of experience in retail pharmacy settings. Kristen became an RxLive co-founder because of her passion for geriatric pharmacy, with a focus on the intersection of pharmacy and aging.