With Fewer Primary Care Providers Offering Vaccinations, Independent Pharmacies Can Take Advantage | NCPA 2024
David Ha, PharmD, BCIDP, discusses why pharmacies should begin offering more vaccines and how they can better market their services to the community.
The COVID-19 pandemic showcased how important pharmacists are to the community. Over the course of the public health crisis, pharmacy teams across the United States expanded their roles by providing different clinical interventions, especially vaccinations. Between February 2020 and September 2022, pharmacists and their colleagues administered more than 270 million COVID-19 vaccines, accounting for over 50% of COVID-19 vaccines in the country.1
According to a 2023 report from the Global Healthy Living Foundation, pharmacists in the US administered more routine vaccinations than physicians from 2020 to 2021.2 The report showed that the majority of adult COVID-19 and shingles vaccinations and 13% to 20% of adult HPV vaccines took place at pharmacies. Approximately 60% of vaccinations during flu season took place at pharmacies, as well.
David Ha, PharmD, BCIDP, an infectious disease and antimicrobial stewardship pharmacist and the PGY2 Infectious Disease Residency Program Coordinator at Stanford Health Care, said that more pharmacies should be offering different types of vaccinations, especially as primary care providers are providing less of them to patients.
“The data really shows that over 8 out of 10 patients have gotten their vaccine, in this current 2024 to 2025 season, from a pharmacy,” Ha said. “That number just keeps going up. Pharmacies are the place that people are getting these vaccines. It’s in the mind of patients, it’s in the mind of providers, so [providers] are just deferring [vaccinations] to community pharmacies. And from what I’ve seen in some of my collaborations with public health is that pharmacies just do it better. They’re better at documenting, they’re better at getting shots in arms quicker and at a higher volume, they’re better at storage and handling. So, it makes sense.”
In a conversation with Drug Topics at the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA) 2024 Annual Convention and Expo, Ha discussed why primary care providers are offering less vaccinations, how pharmacies can take advantage, and ways that pharmacies can better market their services to the community.
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