FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Chris Palombo
The Dispensary of Hope
615-736-5075
chris.palombo (at) dispensaryofhope.org
<Dispensary of Hope Partners with the John D. Bower School of Population Health at the University of Mississippi Medical Center >
NASHVILLE, Tennessee, December 1, 2018 --- The Dispensary of Hope, a licensed charitable medication distributor serving the United States, has established a partnership with The John D. Bower School of Population Health at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC).
Dispensary of Hope serves over 160 medication access dispensing sites across the United States, supplying a consistent inventory of essential medications to serve the low-income population. Dispensary of Hope provides this service in partnership with 26 pharmaceutical manufacturers. Over the next ten years, Dispensary of Hope will grow to serve all 50 states and 1.3 million of our nation’s most vulnerable uninsured patients.
The purpose of this partnership is to formally assess the impact of consistent access to essential medication on the low-income, uninsured population – activity that is core to Dispensary of Hope’s mission. UMMC will bring research expertise to further document best practices for Dispensary of Hope’s activities and their effect on both health outcomes and savings to the health-care system. The partnership between Dispensary of Hope and UMMC will expand on research conducted by the Advisory Board Company showing a reduction in cost-per-visit for both inpatient and emergency department services, and improved health outcomes for patients with chronic conditions as a result of patient access to medication provided through Saint Thomas Health’s Dispensary of Hope inventory.
Christopher Palombo, the Dispensary of Hope CEO, said, “The Dispensary of Hope looks forward to working with and learning from the John D. Bower School of Population Health. Measurement of the impact on health outcomes is critical for any nonprofit social venture serving in the population health space because it tells society if a charitable initiative is achieving its goal – that being health improvement. Health outcomes impact is also important to the generic and branded medication donors, who have given generously through Dispensary of Hope to serve the vulnerable.”
Palombo added, “UMMC’s kindness and leadership will be a force-multiplier to Dispensary of Hope’s effort to improve the health of the nation’s 27.6 million uninsured.”
“We are inspired by Dispensary of Hope’s mission and look forward to using the tools of population health science to measure the impact of their model on the health outcomes of low-income, uninsured populations,” said Dr. Bettina Beech, Dean of the School of Population Health.
The Dispensary of Hope is a collaborative network composed of medication donor manufacturers, dispensing clinics, pharmacies, health systems and partner organizations. The collaborative recognizes the importance of strategic partnerships in developing and implementing successful population health strategies. The United States charity care system has advanced due to the development of a new health-care delivery model for vulnerable populations. In 2012, the Dispensary of Hope began its work to route a significant portion of medications from the nation’s pharmaceutical industry to the nation’s now 27.6 million uninsured patients through community-level health-care organizations. Medication donated by manufacturers is delivered by the Dispensary of Hope to safety-net clinics, charitable pharmacies and some of the nation’s largest nonprofit health-care systems. Qualified patients have benefited from over 900,000 prescriptions in the last year.
As population health initiatives continue to work their way into the U.S. health landscape, organizations must find new and innovative solutions to meet their customers’ needs while ensuring fiscal fortitude. Utilizing a combination of resources, including donated medication, helps provide a high level of care to vulnerable populations. In fact, many of the health systems in our network utilize Dispensary of Hope as part of their population health efforts as one specific way that their pharmacy departments can play a role.
For more information about the Dispensary of Hope, donating medicine or becoming a dispensing site, please go to: www.dispensaryofhope.org
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