This article is sponsored by AnewHealth. In this Voices interview, Home Health Care News sits down with Brian Adams, President, AnewHealth, to talk about how pharmacy has the power to transform health care and enhance quality of life. He explains how this impacts patients with complex, chronic care needs who want to remain in their homes as they age. He also breaks down what makes access to more comprehensive pharmacy care at home a powerful lever to improve clinical and financial health care outcomes for patients, family caregivers and providers.
Home Health Care News: What life and career experiences do you most draw from, in your role today?
Brian Adams: I started my career with a company focused on providing medication management solutions to the hospice space, which had a profound impact on me. It connected me directly to patient care and improving lives during a very vulnerable time—not just for the patients, but also for the caregivers, the care team, and everyone surrounding them in those final days. I eventually left that business and joined a large audit, tax, and consulting firm and spent a number of years there. While we were doing good work, I realized it lacked the same level of impact.
I’ve always felt drawn to health care because it provides an opportunity to make a direct impact on people’s lives. Here at AnewHealth, our mission is to deliver transformative pharmacy solutions that elevate care and outcomes for the most complex patients and their health care teams. Having a mission-oriented business that makes a difference for patients is critical for us at AnewHealth.
Another aspect of my life that I draw from is the time I spent at early-stage entrepreneurial companies, which instilled the importance of innovation. We need to keep innovating in both our solutions and our delivery to create a better experience for our partners, the patients we serve, and their care teams. Without that commitment, things can get stagnant. At AnewHealth, we constantly ask ourselves how we can improve, what matters most to the patients we serve, and where we need to invest to drive more value for all our stakeholders.
How can pharmacy transform how we care for people with complex chronic medical needs at home?
Over the past 5 to 10 years, there’s been a big shift toward caring for people in their homes, which is ultimately where most of us want to be. While there’s clearly a need for facilities in some cases, whenever we can care for people at home, I see pharmacy as a key enabler. Many of the people we support have complex needs, managing numerous medications, which can be a real challenge for their caregivers. Pharmacy can have a massive impact on both the patient and their care team.
Our mission is to transform the pharmacy experience. For many people, grabbing a prescription on the way home from work or at lunch is easy, but for our patients, it’s often not possible. We see our services as a way to empower people to stay safely at home, reducing the complexity and anxiety around medication management.
We’ve also seen pharmacy access shrink over the past few years. Recently, Walgreens announced plans to close approximately 1,200 stores, with CVS also closing locations. This is disproportionately affecting people in rural and low-income areas who want to stay home but are losing nearby pharmacy access. As these “pharmacy deserts” grow, patients may have to travel two or three towns over, which isn’t feasible for many.
The current pharmacy model just doesn’t fit the needs of home health patients or those who want to stay at home. They need a different level of pharmacy care, and that’s what we’re here to deliver. We provide comprehensive pharmacy solutions designed to support the most complex patients and care for people safely at home.
With value-based care arrangements becoming more common among providers of all types, what role can pharmacy play in the big picture?
Through the right lens, value-based care isn’t just an economic model; it’s a philosophy that drives patient outcomes and fosters collaboration among all stakeholders. By facilitating informed decisions that improve outcomes, better care then translates to financial benefits.
We see pharmacy playing a vital role in mitigating the risks tied to complex patients. Our tools and platform enable us to support providers in identifying high-risk patients based on their medication regimens and helping them remain adherent.
What’s exciting about what we’re developing is the ability to do this prospectively—before someone ever takes a medication. We work directly with the clinician to optimize medication therapy, asking, “Is this the right therapy for this person?” Then we package it to make it simple for them to understand exactly when and how to take their medications. Our ability to drive patient, financial and clinical outcomes simultaneously is what makes us a true partner.
Our solutions focus on identifying the right medications for the right patients and maintaining adherence. As supported by peer-reviewed journals, these interventions can drive significant cost savings and a better patient experience.
Coordinated care has become increasingly important for patients with complex needs, especially those with multiple providers on their care teams. What role can pharmacy play in that equation?
When you think about the demographic we serve today, the average person is around 70 years old, and might be on 10 different medications, taking around 20 pills throughout the day. They might have six different chronic conditions and various doctors. So, who’s the quarterback for that patient from a medication management perspective?
We see that as our role—to be the organization providing surveillance so that anytime there’s a medication change or they’re seeing a different provider, we can bring insight to the table. We’re trying to elevate the role of pharmacy to be more prospective, getting in front of a prescription before it’s given.
Residing at home requires a whole new level of integrated care. We believe we can support the care team significantly by being that quarterback, providing 24/7 access to pharmaceutical care and a lifeline at any time for those who might need it.
How can pharmacy influence health care outcomes?
One of the challenges we’ve faced in positioning pharmacy as integral to managing overall patient health is that it’s traditionally been siloed by reimbursement and cost structures, without economic models that recognize the impact pharmacy can have on overall medical costs, spending and utilization.
In addition, the transactional nature of pharmacy is ingrained in the way people think about it. Typically, the process is straightforward: you go to the doctor, get a prescription, stop by the pharmacy, pick it up, and go home, often with minimal interaction with the pharmacist. We’re designing solutions that provide a more comprehensive level of care, so patients no longer experience pharmacy as just a quick transaction.
Our goal is to showcase pharmacy’s influence on patient outcomes by promoting safer, more effective medication management. With our solutions, we’ve shown improved adherence, fewer adverse drug events, and lower facility admissions and readmissions, all documented in peer-reviewed journals. For organizations managing readmission risks, we offer support in minimizing the likelihood of hospitalizations and readmissions, helping them achieve better outcomes.
How does high-touch pharmacy care improve quality of life for patients and their caregivers?
Access to medication is a common issue for patients and their caregivers, especially when it comes to managing complex medication needs. Imagine being on a medication routine with 10 meds that might change often and making multiple trips to the pharmacy or organizing pills into little boxes—it’s a lot to handle.
Our solutions make it easy for patients to take their meds consistently, giving patients and their caregivers peace of mind that they’re taking the right meds at the right time without the worry of running out. I spoke at an event recently, and a woman shared a story that I hear often. She told me, “I’m the oldest daughter in my family, and I’m responsible for my mom’s care. I live in New York City, but my mom is in Virginia.” She said, “The solution you’re talking about, having someone help my mom and giving me visibility into her care so I know she’s taking her meds—it’s a relief. My mom is living at home with some assistance, but I’ve never really felt certain that she’s taking everything as she should.”
This is a common theme. There are millions of people dealing with these challenges as the population ages and medication needs increase. We need a pharmacy model that breaks away from the traditional approach. For many, having the right medication support means they can remain at home rather than move to a facility.
Finish this sentence: “In the home-based care space, 2025 will be defined by…”
…further integrating care to deliver enhanced outcomes.
Editor’s note: This article has been edited for length and clarity.
AnewHealth is one of the nation’s leading pharmacy care management companies that specializes in caring for people with the most complex, chronic needs—wherever they call home. The company enables better health and quality of life for patients while helping the healthcare organizations who support them improve key clinical and cost outcomes. AnewHealth provides a suite of solutions that includes comprehensive pharmacy services with national dispensing; proprietary science-based technology to optimize medication therapy; full-service pharmacy benefit management; and specialized support services for PACE (Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly). For more info, visit: anewhealthrx.com
The Voices Series is a sponsored content program featuring leading executives discussing trends, topics and more shaping their industry in a question-and-answer format. For more information on Voices, please contact [email protected].