Hospitals and health systems are pouring capital into pharmacy operations this summer, from rural cardiology partnerships to $30 million automated fulfillment centers, as they look to capture more prescription volume, cut readmissions and compete with retail pharmacy closures. Here’s a look at seven recent expansions.
- Cincinnati-based UC Health opened UC Health West Professional Pharmacy on the Clifton Campus Aug. 17, giving patients another outpatient option to fill and pick up prescriptions. The location is the system’s sixth retail pharmacy and its second retail opening in the last 13 months.
- Chicago-based Lurie Children’s has opened its first outpatient specialty pharmacy at its Schaumburg, Ill., outpatient and infusion center, embedding pharmacy liaisons in clinical practices including oncology, cystic fibrosis and rheumatology. The launch, done with Clearway Health, adds to a broader wave of systems building in-house specialty pharmacy operations, following moves from Fairfax, Va.-based Inova Health, Indianapolis-based Eskenazi Health and Santa Barbara, Calif.-based Cottage Health.
- Louisville, Ky.-based Norton Healthcare has opened a $29.8 million retail and central-fill pharmacy that automates up to 7,000 prescriptions per eight-hour shift and offers the system’s first home delivery option, available at no extra charge to patients in Kentucky and Indiana. The move follows a similar 2024 investment from Louisville-based Baptist Health, which built a central pharmacy capable of filling 14,000 prescriptions every 10 hours.
- Valhalla, N.Y.-based Westchester Medical Center Health Network launched an in-house specialty pharmacy within six months of hiring Urshila Shah, PharmD, as chief pharmacy officer, completing the build without a turnkey vendor. Dr. Shah said the system is targeting a start-to-therapy turnaround of fewer than three days, down from the roughly three-week wait patients often face with national specialty pharmacies.
- Morgantown, W.Va.-based WVU Medicine has expanded a rural heart failure pharmacy program first launched in 2024 to 22 pharmacists across 12 pharmacies in West Virginia and southern Pennsylvania, connecting rural patients to cardiovascular specialists for medication management and adherence monitoring. The system also opened a new community pharmacy in Morgantown that offers prescriptions, immunizations, compliance packaging and drive-thru pickup.
- Houston-based Memorial Hermann Health System has opened its fifth retail pharmacy, a second location at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center that cost about $2 million and marks the system’s first retail site built with automation. Four more locations are planned within the next year, Binita Patel, PharmD, vice president of pharmacy services, told Becker’s, as the system leans into what she called an “aggressive” strategy to keep patients out of pharmacy deserts left by retail chain pullbacks.
- Wailuku, Hawaii-based Maui Health has partnered with Mauliola Pharmacy to launch bedside prescription delivery for patients discharged from Maui Memorial Medical Center, including a Meds to ER program for after-hours emergency department discharges and a Meds to Beds program for inpatients.
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