How Southern Ohio Medical Center puts integrative pharmacy services at the center of its population health efforts

By implementing a technology-driven, community-focused integrative pharmacy program that increases patient touchpoints, Portsmouth-based Southern Ohio Medical Center (SOMC) is improving population health in rural Ohio.

 During a September webinar hosted by Becker's Hospital Review and sponsored by CPS, Greg Wozniak, president and CEO of Denali Health and executive adviser of CPS, moderated a panel discussion among three SOMC leaders and a CPS executive to illustrate how SOMC, a rural hospital system, has successfully used integrative pharmacy to impact community population health. Panelists included:

  • Valerie DeCamp, vice president of clinical integration and chief quality officer at SOMC
  • Sarah Porter, DO, senior medical director of family practice at SOMC
  • Rory Phillips, director of pharmacy and respiratory care at SOMC
  • Brandon Newman, chief operations officer at CPS

Four key takeaways: 

  1. Patients in communities across the U.S. face multiple barriers to managing their health. According to a 2019 SOMC community needs assessment, the top challenge for managing chronic conditions such as asthma, COPD and diabetes was cost. "The data showed what we knew from experience; many of our patients couldn't afford their medications," Dr. DeCamp said. "As a result, they were rationing their prescriptions, and their health outcomes were suffering."

    "This is, unfortunately, not just a rural Ohio problem," she said. "An American Diabetes Association study showed that one-fourth of diabetic patients have turned to rationing their therapy due to costs during the COVID-19 pandemic." Other barriers included prior authorizations, lack of medication education and the level of coordination required to ensure adherence to treatment plans. Community members also struggled with anxiety and depression, access to healthy food and smoking cessation. 

  2. The biggest opportunity for pharmacy to impact patients is after they leave the clinic. SOMC's integrative pharmacy program focuses on significantly increasing patient touchpoints between clinic visits. "Our pharmacy liaisons are on the front lines, and they're calling patients at regular intervals to schedule their refills," Dr. Newman said. "Our pharmacists are also regularly seeing and communicating with patients to provide counseling, education and support to improve adherence and clinical outcomes.” For example, real-time data from apps and home glucose monitors can prompt diabetic medication adjustments more rapidly for pharmacy patients.

  3. Teamwork, scalable infrastructure, provider buy-in and the right technology are keys to integrative pharmacy success. By partnering with CPS to establish the care model and develop the clinical infrastructure, SOMC laid a foundation to create a better patient experience, improve outcomes and enable sustainable growth. “Instead of being in call centers, our specialty pharmacy staff are placed in the provider offices and meet many of these patients face-to-face. There is a liaison and a pharmacist assigned to Mrs. Smith, it’s not a call center where Mrs. Smith talks to someone different every time,” Mr. Phillips said.

    One challenge SOMC encountered was provider buy-in. "We know that providers aren't going to refer a patient to our services unless they really believe in them, so we have to give them proof. These outcomes that Dr. Porter discussed speak for themselves,” Mr. Phillips explained. “Teamwork, especially with your senior medical director, is key to success.”

  4. Early results fuel program expansion. Although the services launched just a year ago, Dr. Porter said she already has seen improvement in her patients with diabetes. For patients with an initial A1C level greater than 10, she has seen a 12.8 percent decrease. For those with an AIC under 10, numbers have dropped on average from 7.9 to 7.1. In addition, medication adherence rates for patients reached 92 percent. Nationally, only 24 percent of patients are completely adherent to their therapy regimens.1 "Patients aren't being compliant with their medications, and this program changes that." SOMC plans to roll out the program systemwide by year's end.

To hear more about SOMC and CPS, visit our webinar recording, here.

1. http://www.ncpa.co/adherence/AdherenceReportCard_Full.pdf

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