Dr Kristen Whelchel Describes MID Specialty Pharmacy's Adaptable Model

Kristen Whelchel, PharmD, CSP, of Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), discussed what services medically integrated dispensing (MID) specialty pharmacies provide and their adaptable models. Whelchel expanded upon this topic within the session, "Medically Integrated Dispensing Services: Creating Value for Payers and Providers" at AMCP Nexus on October 17.

At VUMC, Whelchel is the research and patient care improvement pharmacist at Vanderbilt Specialty Pharmacy's Department of Health Outcomes and Research. In this position, she oversees the department's patient care improvement efforts and assists with outcomes research planning and execution.

Transcript

What services do MID specialty pharmacies provide?

There's lots of services that MID pharmacies provide and can provide. There are services that may be needed for specific drugs that the model for MID pharmacies can really adapt. They're flexible.

Specifically within the Vanderbilt Specialty Pharmacy, a lot of the programs we have are around therapy monitoring for patients, making sure that they are adherent to their medication persistent, and that they are doing well on medication and reaching goals of therapy.

We also are really focused on cost avoidance, especially in oncology. We are doing things to make sure that we are not unnecessarily filling medications that a patient's not going to be able to use. I think that's one of the big things we talked about today, that when patients have an upcoming follow up in the oncology space, a lot of times they are typically going to potentially have some type of change to therapy. We want to make sure that we're proactive as pharmacists, especially since we have that access to all of the patient's records, that we're reviewing that information and making good, sound clinical decisions based off of it.

Granted, when you send that refill request to the doctor's office, it may get stopped there, and you may not get a refill for the patient that's going to be filled, but a lot of times you do get that refill because the doctor's office doesn't have that visibility into the patient's prescription data so they don't know how much medication a patient has on hand. So, they have to trust that when the pharmacy sends a request that the patient needs the prescription.