ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on healthcare professionals, specifically on physicians who are currently in short supply. It also examines nontraditional methods to deliver healthcare with emphasis on an expanded role for pharmacies. Hospitals are a key part of the provider network, but an earlier chapter discussed how hospitals may change, so those ideas are not repeated here. For many decades, pharmacies have provided essential services. With approximately 159,000 highly educated pharmacists operating at 75,000 locations in the United States,1 pharmacies are an underused community resource that can play a key role in delivering knowledge about wellness, collecting health screening data for patients, and even providing routine healthcare services onsite. Pharmacies can be a hub for delivering healthcare to neighborhoods.