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By Steve Anderson
The unmistakable focus on health and wellness innovation that attendees will experience at the 2024 NACDS Total Store Expo has its roots in the 2022 NACDS Total Store Expo.
In addition to being the first in-person NACDS Total Store Expo after the pandemic, that conference two years ago gave rise to what now is called the NACDS Health and Wellness Innovation Initiative — which will be a major theme of this year’s event and a major focus of NACDS’ work for the future of this industry.
During its meeting at the 2022 NACDS Total Store Expo, the NACDS board of directors approved the association’s vigorous focus on health and wellness innovation. Pharmacy’s widely acknowledged role in saving America during the pandemic inspired a redoubled focus on leveraging this industry’s ability to scale health and wellness solutions nationwide. The goal is to create a healthier future for all Americans, and to leverage the pharmacy, the entire store and supplier partners to bring about this reality.
On the last day of the 2022 conference, several members of the NACDS staff team and I were talking in the Exhibit Hall about how best to launch this important work. As it turned out, we had an amazing opportunity right before us. The White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health — the first of its kind in 50 years — was scheduled just one month away in September 2022.
The NACDS membership and staff mounted a swift and major effort to inject pharmacy into this historic White House initiative and to do what pharmacy consistently does: make a major and positive impact for the American people.
NACDS accomplished an incredible amount of work in just one month’s time. Among the results of NACDS’ engagement in the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health was the formal recognition by the White House of NACDS’ commitment to wage a consumer health education campaign about the importance of nutrition to prevent chronic disease and about food security.
Since then, NACDS and some of the nation’s leading patient advocacy groups have delivered on that bold commitment by launching the Nourish My Health education campaign. This campaign has achieved nearly 180 million impressions, reaching Americans across the country and focusing on regions with disproportionate risk of diet-related diseases. NACDS chain and supplier members are engaging passionately in this effort.
Additional results of the NACDS Health and Wellness Initiative over the past two years are extremely mission focused:
• The White House went on to formally recognize a second NACDS commitment this year, which relates to the “White House Challenge to End Hunger and Build Healthy Communities” — part of the sustained effort initiated by the 2022 White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health. NACDS’ second commitment involves working with the prestigious Milken Institute to help leverage pharmacies in “food is medicine” efforts.
• NACDS and the Milken Institute already have delivered on that commitment, too — with the June 2024 release of the Milken Institute’s Action Plan, “Catalyzing Action for Pharmacist-Provided Food Is Medicine Care.” NACDS now is putting into motion a comprehensive effort to help implement the on-point recommendations mapped out in this Action Plan.
• NACDS is advocating for pharmacy data interoperability — perhaps the most crucial linchpin for broader deployment of pharmacist-provided services. Central to this work is a compelling Leavitt Partners report that shows a clear path forward for improving patient access and outcomes through pharmacy data interoperability.
• NACDS has developed and deployed for chain members a toolkit that helps companies evaluate and maximize their approach to value-based care. This toolkit is being hailed by members as an extremely insightful and effective resource.
• NACDS is working with members and with allied organizations to identify creative opportunities to leverage AI wisely and with effect in the retail and pharmacy environments, in ways that may be game changing for operations and patient outcomes alike.
Simply put, when it comes to health and wellness, NACDS is working with leading players in our nation to advance payment for pharmacy services, to reinforce the irreplaceable capabilities and reach of pharmacies, and to capitalize on the technologies before us and on the technologies of tomorrow.
These examples stand out among many, many more, and they will prove to be true catalysts: the initial and significant moves that will lead to even more progress in the coming months and years.
NACDS also continues to advocate vigorously — and in ever more bold ways — for federal and state policies that are absolutely essential for health and wellness innovation.
Reform of pharmacy benefit manager tactics remains a clear top priority. It is unmistakable: Broader health and wellness innovations rely on the viability of pharmacies and on health care affordability and access for all Americans. Pharmaceutical benefit manipulation by the market-dominant prescription drug middlemen must be confronted in a meaningful way. NACDS continues to earn significant victories at the state level and continues to make the case that PBM reform is must-pass legislation in the current 118th Congress.
NACDS also is pushing for necessary scope-of-practice enhancements at the state level to improve individuals’ access to pharmacies for services. NACDS, members and allied organizations have launched the new Your Care Coalition to advance test-and-treat policies in particular.
Further, NACDS and the Future of Pharmacy Care Coalition continue to push for the federal Equitable Community Access to Pharmacist Services Act (S. 2477/H.R. 1770) — which would ensure that Americans in Medicare have access to certain pharmacist-provided services authorized by the states.
A lot of excellent work has been accomplished, and momentum remains powerful, since that consequential 2022 NACDS Total Store Expo — which created the official starting line for the NACDS Health and Wellness Initiative.
It is fitting that so much of the conversation about the future of pharmacy and retail health centers on the NACDS Total Store Expo. In fact, when the NACDS Total Store Expo was announced in 2011 and launched in 2013, the strategic vision was to foster innovation through discussions related to the entire store, to diverse suppliers, and to health and wellness broadly defined. Previously, NACDS hosted separate conferences for the pharmacy, for the front end of the store and for the supply chain.
Now, a comprehensive focus on health and wellness is part of everything that NACDS does. In fact, earlier this year, Association Conventions & Facilities magazine featured the NACDS Total Store Expo in an article titled “Trade Shows That Sparkle with Engagement.” The article included the sense that while attendees may define health and wellness differently, they all choose to write their future at the event.
We look forward to the productive work among chains and suppliers that will headline the 2024 NACDS Total Store Expo in Boston. No doubt this conference will prove imminently influential — yet again — in fashioning the future of health and wellness innovation in this industry and in this great nation.
Steve Anderson is president and chief executive officer of the National Association of Chain Drug Stores.
