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As I reflect back on my attending the NACDS Annual Meeting in April, it is with fond memories and a wonderful look back at an industry that has become a health care provider like no other. The role of pharmacy has changed. Most of us see that and understand what has taken place and will adapt going forward. The pharmacy portion of the store represents the ability to help consumers stay healthy and well far longer than was possible years ago.
Bob Kwait
The challenge is to stay focused on that piece, and from that standpoint we are dealing with a lot of problems. Certainly part of it is the cost of billing prescriptions today and the ability for the pharmacy to make money. It’s a challenge that needs to be addressed, and certainly NACDS needs to play a role in that as well as the federal government.
The other challenge is that the diversity of the membership today creates opportunity and questions the role of the supplier side of the business, and how those companies should deal with the different types of retailers that were present at the meeting.
We have the dollar stores that have exploded and are really moving faster than any other trade class. They are looking at wellness and health care products, since they serve more areas in the country than any other retail channel, and when you look to areas that are in search of retail needs their role becomes much broader, particularly in rural areas. Therefore, I see the role of dollar stores going forward expanding dramatically, with members of the trade class offering health care services without pharmacy to the consumer.
Then there are independent pharmacies. They have more flexibility than chains do and can move in directions that would require a lot more work in bigger companies, particularly large chains.
Regional drug chains do a phenomenal job in the areas where they operate. Supermarkets, which initially looked upon pharmacy as an accommodation to their customer, now realize that, as it relates to good eating and health care, pharmacy is critical to their image. As a result, supermarkets have taken on the task of wellness and good health, and they’ve done an outstanding job of moving in that direction.
The NACDS Annual Meeting this year was outstanding primarily because it brought together a unique mix of retailers — in addition to drug chains, dollar stores, pharmaceutical wholesalers and their independent pharmacy groups, supermarkets, and other nontraditional retailers that provide unique services attended this year’s meeting.
NACDS is a name that I have had some difficulty explaining to people who don’t know the industry, because the association is no longer the National Association of Chain Drug Stores. It represents a far more diversified group in health care and the other areas I specified. Is it time that we take a look at the name of the association and come up with a designation more suited to representing the health care companies and pharmacies involved on a national basis? My recommendation for a new name would be along the lines of National Association of Pharmacies and Health Care Providers.
The membership is there from various groups; the goal should be to provide services in multiple areas. Not only pharmacy but beauty, because beauty represents another part of the health care equation. The industry needs to do a better job addressing consumers’ changing needs.
I found the NACDS Annual Meeting — my 52nd — to be outstanding. Changes in health care and retailing are taking place at an extremely rapid rate, and that leads me to believe drug store is no longer the word that should be used for our industry. It is a far more unique and specialized. My compliments to all who made it a memorable event, but going forward we must take on the challenge and make the changes necessary. Drug stores will no longer be part of the brick-and-mortar world in the future. Pharmacy will, beauty stores will, but not drug stores.
Bob Kwait is chairman of Kwait & Associates and the Bob Kwait Consulting Group.
