Vermont Telepharmacy Pilot Program Keeps Outpatient Pharmacy Services Alive in Rural Vermont

Keith McGilvery of WCAX News writes about a state-board approved rural outpatient telepharmacy program that has been running in Plainfield, Vermont for 2.5 years. Even though there's no pharmacist in town, one from Colchester remotely councils patients via a live video link, with a vending machine dispensing drugs to a technician.

The program is expanding Hardwick soon, and "telepharmacies are also up for discussion in Danville, Barton, Concord."

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Low-Cost Pharmacy Opens in Colchester

Colchester, Vermont - December 15, 2008

Low-income Vermonters will now have access to some of the cheapest prescription drugs in the nation.

The Community Health Pharmacy opened in Colchester. It will serve five of Vermont's seven federally qualified Health Centers, like the Community Health Center of Burlington. Eventually they hope to serve all seven. Primarily, prescriptions will be filled here and mailed to patients at 40 percent to 75 percent off the usual cost. Currently about 55,000 Vermonters are eligible for this service.

"We are increasing access to pharmacy services to most areas where there isn't much access at all... Our inventory is purchased at a ceiling price," said Marc Comtois of the Community Health Pharmacy. "The price that we get is the second cheapest access prescription out there other than Dept of Defense and the VA."

The Community Health Pharmacy is also part of a pilot-project for a telepharmacy controlled auto-dispensing unit.

Through a computer, pharmacists in Colchester dispense drugs through a vending machine in Plainfield and oversee a pharmacy technician there who hands out the meds. It's designed to see if this program could help with a severe pharmacist shortage in Vermont.

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