The successful expansion of pharmacy roles during COVID-19 lead many pharmacists to want the temporary shift to become permanent. Tara Pfund talks about the shifting scope of practice from being a medication dispenser to taking on a clinician role as an integral member of patient care. Pharmacists can play a vital role in improving health outcomes and studies have shown positive impacts on health outcomes when pharmacists are involved in the patient care. Medication adherence, outcomes in chronic conditions, and preventing hospitalizations have all seen improvement with pharmacists’ expanded scope of care.

Tara outlines how pharmacists are being successfully utilized by physicians in value-based care stating, “[Physicians will say] I have this patient newly diagnosed with high blood pressure. I’m going to start them on this medication, and they start coming to your pharmacy for the in-between visits, where you work on making sure that medications are optimized, making sure they understand diet and exercise and even just what general education or what high blood pressure means, and how to manage it and how to check your own blood pressure at home, and what to do if it’s too high.”