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CAMP HILL, Pa. — Pharmacists in Rite Aid Corp.’s nearly 4,600 drug stores are now using the EQuIPP pharmacy performance measurement platform from Pharmacy Quality Solutions (PQS).
Rite Aid said Wednesday that it’s the largest drug chain to enable EQuIPP access to all of its pharmacists. The information management tool provides access to performance data across key patient care quality metrics, including for medication adherence and proper medication use.
Specifically, EQuIPP allows Rite Aid pharmacists to review their performance based on key quality metrics, compare their performance against benchmarks and identify areas for improvement in patient care, health outcomes and health plan Star Ratings, the drug chain noted.
“Value-based health care is here to stay, and that’s why it’s important for Rite Aid to provide our pharmacists with the resources and tools they need to deliver improved health outcomes for their patients,” Jocelyn Konrad, executive vice president of pharmacy at Rite Aid, said in a statement. “Our pharmacists are committed to providing excellent care to their customers, and with EQuIPP we’re empowering them to make an even greater difference in the health and well-being of their customers and succeed in today’s health care environment.”
Rite Aid added that it also helps customers with medication adherence via such programs as medication therapy management (MTM); One Trip Refill, a medication synchronization service; Prescription Advisor, a compliance monitoring tool; automated courtesy refills; and prescription reminders via phone, text or email.
Announced in 2013, EQuIPP (Electronic Quality Improvement Platform for Plans and Pharmacies) is a first-of-its-kind national platform for medication-related quality measurement and benchmarking. EQuIPP aggregates data from multiple health plans and pharmacies to measure the quality of medication use and makes the measurement available to all participants to promote collaboration between health plans, PBMs and community pharmacies.
EQuIPP was developed by PQS, a joint venture of the Pharmacy Quality Alliance (PQA) and CECity.com Inc., a provider of cloud-based applications for the health care sector.
“We are excited to see Rite Aid provide their pharmacists with EQuIPP access as part of the company’s continued focus on improving patient outcomes,” stated Elliott Sogol, vice president of professional relations for PQS. “With an increased value being placed on quality outcomes, having easy access to transparent and accurate performance data is key and will help support Rite Aid’s efforts towards best-in-class quality performance.”
Other pharmacies that have announced adoption of EQuIPP include Health Mart, Medicine Shoppe, Good Neighbor Pharmacy, Kmart Pharmacy and Sav-Mor. In late October, PQS reported that 90% of U.S. community pharmacies subscribe to EQuIPP and that the platform is connected to health plans and prescription drug plans serving a majority of Medicare beneficiaries.
