How Rural Pharmacies Are Screening Thousands, Cutting Costs

A collaborative initiative across 6 states, in what is known as the “Stroke Belt,” was found to screen and improve outcomes for thousands of patients at risk of stroke and heart disease, according to a National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA) news release.¹ The program was created through a partnership between NCPA, Community Pharmacy Enhanced Services Network (CPESN), and Bristol Myers Squibb, with the hopes of improving cardiovascular disease (CVD) outcomes alongside hospitalization costs.

“Too many people living in rural communities face barriers to timely cardiovascular care,” Andrew Whitehead, vice president and head of population health at Bristol Myers Squibb, said in the news release.¹ “These findings reinforce the important role community pharmacies can play as accessible, trusted health care hubs, supporting earlier identification of risk, connecting patients to resources, and helping address care gaps.”

Addressing these stark regional disparities is a matter of life and death. Adults living in rural areas face a 19% higher risk of developing heart failure and are 1.5 times more likely to die of CVD compared with those in urban communities.²

Seeking traditional clinical care in these regions often demands driving long distances, waiting months for appointments, or sacrificing unpaid hours away from work. The pilot program successfully established accessible, localized clinical touchpoints to bridge these gaps.^2,3

READ MORE: Tech-Driven Home Pharmacy Model Tackles Rural Health Crises

Over the 6-month data collection period, the 25 participating independent community pharmacies logged 11,188 encounters for 9820 patients across 694 different ZIP codes, delivering more than 20,000 discrete interventions. These statistics demonstrate a scalable mechanism for bringing essential preventative care directly to a rural neighborhood level.^1,3

At the heart of the initiative’s clinical success were targeted stroke and atrial fibrillation (AFib) screenings. Pharmacy teams conducted American Heart Association stroke risk assessments during 88% of all encounters, identifying 5162 patients (52% of those screened) at high risk of stroke.³

Furthermore, point-of-care AFib screenings identified 404 patients with abnormal heart rhythms. Of those patients, 15% did not have an established primary care physician, prompting the pharmacy teams to actively secure local providers for them.^1,3

Reconnecting these patients to the broader health system is a massive driver of cost avoidance. Connecting a single patient previously reporting undiagnosed AFib with appropriate care prevents roughly $35,000 in treatment failure and hospitalization costs. In just 6 months, the 25 rural pharmacies generated an astonishing $14.1 million in health care cost savings through AFib screenings alone.

In addition to clinical screenings, the program leveraged cross-trained pharmacy technicians as pharmacy-based community health workers (PCHWs) to resolve non-medical drivers of health. These frontline professionals were specifically trained to identify health-related social needs such as financial insecurity, housing instability, and food access.^1,3

Across the cohort, 42% of patients screened had an identified social need, with 52% experiencing access to care challenges and 34% reporting transportation insecurity.³

Pharmacists also focused heavily on patients navigating transitions of care from a hospital or nursing facility back to their homes. Among these highly vulnerable transitions, pharmacists identified medication therapy problems in 46% of cases, with 49% involving therapy duplication and 48% involving dangerous drug interactions.

For pharmacy owners, implementing these comprehensive clinical services depends entirely on workflow integration and financial sustainability. Member pharmacies utilized independent CVD grants to train staff, expand evidence-based clinical offerings, and build sustainable, value-based business practices.^2-4

The value of structured programmatic support is highlighted when comparing these outcomes with community pharmacies operating under different models.

A nationwide study of community pharmacists in Malaysia found that although they provide excellent general patient counseling, they face major systemic barriers to managing CVD. Specifically, 71.2% reported a lack of access to medical records, 70.8% suffered from a shortage of educational materials, and 83.3% had never completed specialized dyslipidemia training, according to a PLoS One study.⁵

The US pilot program bypassed these common pitfalls by utilizing the standardized Pharmacist eCare Plan data standard for clinical documentation, providing intensive pre-implementation onboarding, and incorporating PCHWs to manage administrative and care-coordination tasks. This structure allowed 86% of participating pharmacy teams to agree that the clinical screenings were highly manageable within their daily dispensing workflows.³

This pilot proves that community pharmacies can successfully pivot from traditional dispensing to serving as recognized clinical care providers, paving the way for evolving reimbursement models that reward pharmacies for keeping patients healthy and out of the hospital.

“In this part of the country, like most of rural America, independent community pharmacies are often the only accessible health care providers,” concluded NCPA CEO B. Douglas Hoey, RPh, in the news release.¹ “Many people in these areas may not have ready access to a doctor, but they frequently visit their local pharmacy. So, the local pharmacist is in a good position to identify at-risk patients, provide screening and counseling, connect patients with social services, and refer them to physicians for medical care so they can maintain or even improve their quality of life.”

READ MORE: Interoperable AI, Rural Health Transformation Are Reshaping Pharmacy’s Future

REFERENCES

1. Rural pharmacies identify thousands of patients at risk of stroke, heart disease, pilot program finds. News Release. NCPA. August 11, 2026. Accessed August 11, 2026. https://ncpa.org/newsroom/news-releases/2026/08/11/rural-pharmacies-identify-thousands-patients-risk-stroke-heart

2. Applying a community-focused approach to bridge the gap in rural heart healthcare. Bristol Myers Squibb. November 17, 2025. Accessed August 11, 2026. https://www.bms.com/life-and-science/insights/bridging-cardiovascular-care-gaps-in-rural-america.html

3. Addressing health-related social needs and providing care coordination for patients with cardiovascular disease. NCPA. April 2026. Accessed August 11, 2026. https://www.ncpa.co/pdf/2026/itg/CVDReport_070226.pdf

4. Cardiovascular disease grants. NCPA. Accessed August 11, 2026. https://ncpa.org/itg-cardiovascular-disease

5. Ismail FF, Md Redzuan A, Chong WW, et al. Role of community pharmacists in cardiovascular diseases-related health promotion and dyslipidemia management in Malaysia: a nationwide cross-sectional study. PLoS One. 2023 Sep 28;18(9):e0290883. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0290883