McKesson ideaShare: Wrapping Up The Week

Drug Topics: Hi everyone, welcome back to McKesson ideaShare, where the week is just about wrapping up. We’ve had a great time here, and we want to give a big thanks to everyone who made it possible for us to cover this event.

We still have a ton of stuff to cover from the last few days, so let’s get into it!

Innovation in pharmacy has been a common theme throughout this week, and McKesson presented their second annual Health Mart Innovation Award went to an incredible pharmacy out of Billings, Montana, Pharm406.

We love hearing stories like this, about innovative people in the pharmacy space who see a problem and immediately look for ways to help people and solve the problem for them. Kyle Austin from Pharm406 opened up during the pandemic and quickly made his pharmacy the leading destination in the whole state of Montana for delivering COVID-19 and flu vaccines. They set up a mobile clinic, and actually went out to deliver those vaccines. We so easily forget just how stressful our daily lives felt during the height of the pandemic, and people like Kyle and Pharm406 were truly heroes when we needed them the most.

Pharm406 also supplies cryotherapy for local athletic teams, and just seeing people in the space be so versatile in what they provide for their communities is really heartening to watch. Congratulations to Kyle and Pharm406 for this award, to say it’s well deserved would even be an understatement.

And while Kyle and Pharm406 are doing some incredible work in their first few years in the industry, McKesson also presented an award to someone who is not new to the industry at all.

Virginia Keller of Keller Pharmacy in Ponca, Nebraska was award the Health Mart Lifetime Achievement Award. Virginia has been in the pharmacy world for over 50 years, helping improve the health of multiple generations of families in her community. Virginia has had a truly admirable career, and the folks in Ponca, Nebraska would surely say the same thing. Virginia has dedicated so much of her life to the health and wellbeing of others, which is really one of the most admirable things you can do.

Congratulations to both Pharm406 and Virginia!

We’ll also have a Q&A coming out on the Drug Topics website soon with the winner of the Health Mart Pharmacy of the Year award, so stay tuned in the coming days for that.

Another big topic of discussion at ideaShare, and really the pharmacy world as a whole, is of course the upcoming DSCSA regulations as the act enters its final phase. McKesson gave insights on how to be prepared for these changes, one of them being that pharmacies need to make sure every drug that passes through their store has an identifier that allows it to be tracked through the supply chain.

Staying on top of everything DSCSA-related will make it so much easier to stay on track for compliance, and McKesson has a lot of resources dedicated to helping you do just that--whether that’s helping you access your GLN or just giving more information about what exactly DSCSA will change for pharmacists, we’ll also have an article on DSCSA coming in the near future so keep your eyes peeled for that as well.

One of the really cool things at this conference is McKesson’s partnership with 2 Guys Doing Good and Autism Speaks, in the giant exhibit hall there were some master lego builders creating a replica of the Vegas skyline, and it was pretty incredible to watch them work. The skyline replica and other lego sets are going to be donated to the local Autism Speaks Center, and in addition to that, 2 Guys Doing Good are donating any excess items that the exhibitors here might have to U.S Vets, so there’s really just a lot of good positive things happening here this year.

We wrapped things up at the final night party and got to hear a live performance from Boyz II Men which was a pretty cool experience and a great way to wrap up the weekend. Again, we want to thank McKesson for putting this whole thing together, and we can’t wait to see you all next year. Thanks again for tuning in, and we’ll see you soon.