One of the most important lessons I have learned in my career is that success is never final. In fact, success is a never-ending journey. As with any journey, you need a destination and a compass. In other words, you need purpose.
At CVS Health, our purpose consists of eight simple, yet powerful words: Helping people on their path to better health. They guide our work every day. It's what emboldened us to end tobacco sales in 2014, despite the loss of $2 billion in annual sales. Now we're extending our commitment by partnering with others to make the next generation tobacco-free.
There's an African proverb that speaks to me about the importance of collaboration: "If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."
Our 30,000 pharmacists and clinicians are an important part of the health care system, working with many stakeholders to help improve health outcomes and lower costs for millions of patients.
Finally, to be successful, you must always be looking around the corner for "what's next." We are especially focused on addressing medication nonadherence, which costs our country up to $300 billion annually. We view pharmacy as the last mile on the path to better health, and through our patient-care programs we're helping more Americans take their medicines as prescribed to improve health outcomes and control costs.
As a purpose-driven company, CVS Health will continue to reinvent pharmacy on the front lines of care, because we know success is never final.