How Pharmacies Are Powering Vaccinations Ahead of Cold and Flu Season

As pharmacies gear up for the start of cold and flu season, they are preparing for a surge in patients seeking both routine and seasonal vaccinations—and increasingly viewing the pharmacy as a convenient front door to care.

“August is going to be the start of our cold and flu season in the pharmacies,” Amanda Belvins, PharmD, pharmacy manager at Food City Stores, said, noting that this means both illness prevention and back-to-school requirements are top of mind. “There’s going to also be a lot of folks requesting back-to-school vaccines for students.”

That demand spans a broad range of immunizations. “The flu and COVID vaccines obviously are going to be big,” she said, adding that tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis and meningococcal vaccines will be common, along with annual adult vaccines. Many adults are also asking for “other respiratory vaccines like Tdap, pneumonia, [respiratory syncytial virus],” as well as shingles shots, whether it’s “their first or maybe even second dose.”

To meet that demand, Belvins emphasized that vaccinations cannot be treated as an add-on but must be built into everyday pharmacy workflow. “I think that the very best way that vaccines work in the pharmacy is to have that program integrated into your daily routine activities,” she said.

That means proactively identifying opportunities rather than waiting for patients to ask. Pharmacies should be “identifying these folks, flagging their prescriptions,” and then using key touchpoints, such as the pickup or drop-off window, to start the conversation. At that moment, staff can “grab them aside and do the counseling there to say, ‘Hey, you’re due for this vaccine. Would you like to get this done at the pharmacy today?’” The goal, they stressed, is to “make the process very simple and easy for the patients.”

Belvins also addressed one of the most persistent barriers to vaccination: the belief that vaccines cause illness.

“The biggest misconception that I hear is, ‘Well, I can’t receive the flu vaccine or whichever vaccine because it’s going to make me sick, or the vaccine does make me sick,’” she said.

That perception, she explained, misunderstands how the body responds to immunization. “Vaccines don’t cause illness in the receivers. It’s actually a process called reactogenicity, and that’s the way your body is responding to the vaccine,” Belvins said. The redness, swelling, and pain at the injection site, as well as “some of that fever and fatigue a patient may have after receiving the vaccine,” are “a completely normal response” that “should resolve within a day or so.”

Pharmacies have seen a surge in patients seeking vaccines in recent years, a trend she directly linked to their role during the COVID-19 pandemic. “We have had a really big increase in patients wanting to receive vaccines at a pharmacy,” Belvins said. That shift, she argued, “speaks well to us and our pharmacy as a whole, and the way that the retail pharmacy responded to the COVID‑19 pandemic.”

During that period, “a lot of folks turned to the pharmacy to receive the vaccine at that time” and discovered, “hey, this is a super convenient, easy place for me to receive health care.” Many of those patients “have returned back” for annual vaccines and specialized immunizations, finding it “easier for a lot of folks to receive those in the retail pharmacy setting.”

Looking ahead, Belvins sees pharmacies expanding further into clinical services. “Moving forward, I really think that we need to expand on that patient care plan, patient care concept,” she said, pointing to test-to-treat models as a key opportunity. Some pharmacies already offer programs where “folks can come in, receive maybe that COVID and flu test, and based on the results, maybe [sic] even receive treatment right there within the pharmacy.”

That evolution—from dispensing medications to delivering vaccines and now potentially diagnosing and treating common infections—is central to “the way we take care of our current patients” and to the future of pharmacy-based care.