The APA and IMS/Clark-O'Neill

10/14/96

The American Pharmacy Alliance and IMS/Clark-O'Neill to Partner on Patient Compliance Programs covering over 11,000 independent and small chain pharmacies.

Lexington, Kentucky - Monday, October 14, 1996; The American Pharmacy Alliance and IMS-America's Clark-O'Neill affiliate have agreed to partner in programs that will allow manufacturers and health care management companies, for the first time, to conduct specialized patient compliance programs with over 11,000 independent and small chain pharmacies. The APA is a technology partnership between 16 leading U.S. pharmacy software companies that provide software and system support services to over 11,000 of the 24,000 independent and small chain pharmacies in the United States. Clark-O'Neill is an interactive marketing company to the health care industry providing services that interact with physicians, pharmacists and healthcare consumers to positively modify behavior.

PromptRx^SM, the APA's automated refill reminder program will provide pharmacies with a highly effective means of helping patients fully receive the intended benefits of their medication by being more compliant. Clark-O'Neill offers many strengths and capabilities through its various marketing programs such as physician to physician telephone disease state discussions, database management, telemarketing, publication circulation management, continuing medical education support services, direct mail, product recalls, and innovative partnering programs. Clark-O'Neill's facility meets the strict requirements of the Food and Drug Administration. The on-site facility also includes an environmentally controlled warehouse, a pharmacy, and a U.S. Postal Service substation. Clark-O'Neill will assist pharmacists in directing letters and other types of communication to patients while maintaining patient confidentiality within pharmacy control at all times. By utilizing this fully automated program, pharmacies can deliver a valuable service to their patients without draining their existing resources. Results so far indicate an improvement in refill compliance of 10-40% as a result of refill reminder programs, which translates into healthier patients, and substantial savings for the health care system. Presently, nearly half of all refillable prescriptions are never refilled, and industry figures indicate that 10-15% of all hospital admissions are the result of improper use of medications.

Through the APA/Clark-O'Neill programs, drug manufacturers, wholesalers, pharmacy benefits managers, managed care organizations, and others will for the first time, be able to recruit and service independent and small chain pharmacies with the same efficiencies and economies as large chain, mail order, and HMO pharmacies.

The new PromptRx^SM program will help pharmacies combine the power of their pharmacy computer systems, the intelligence of their patient information databases, and their face-to-face access to patients, to directly improve patient compliance.

The APA will team with other industry suppliers to design and implement additional programs that will allow community pharmacies to further use these strengths to deliver exceptional value to patients and the health care system. While the PromptRx^SM program will be introduced by the APA through its member companies, it will be made available through other pharmacy software companies as well, to extend the reach of the program to additional pharmacies and patients.

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"The American Pharmacy Alliance" and "PromptRx" are servicemarks of The American Pharmacy Alliance.

Updated: January 2001