Nov 13, 2023
Brian Smith, Chief Pharmacy Officer at Shields Health Solutions, addresses the challenges patients experience receiving specialty drugs by working with health systems to simplify the process. With a focus on measuring outcomes and improving patient care, Shields has seen a significant cure rate for hepatitis C, driven by attention to medication adherence and tracking outcomes. Recognizing the need to treat the multiple conditions patients often experience, Shields takes a patient-centric view to help these high-risk patients keep their conditions under control.
Brian explains, "We started in the areas of what people would call specialty pharmacy, such as oncology medications that people take at home, oral medications for people who have had a transplant, and injections like Humira for rheumatoid arthritis."
"But I'd say what we found over the last 12 years is a lot of medications can be challenging and difficult, and a lot of patients need help. While we focus on specialty pharmacy, I'd say we have broadened ourselves to focus on high-risk patients with a lot of needs."
"When we support our specialty patients, and I had the little quotations on my fingers here, we view them holistically. If the patient chooses, we try to support all of their medications, which helps them a lot, as well as dealing with one pharmacy, one call a month, to remind them of their refills for any and every medication they might need. It simplifies things for their providers as well, where it's a lot easier to screen for things like drug interactions and other challenges that can happen with polypharmacy."
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