WOONSOCKET — Fast Company has named CVS Health Corp. No. 7 on its 2018 World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies List, and also placed the Rhode Island based pharmacy company No. 1 on its Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Health.
Apple topped the list, and CVS also shares the top 10 with Netflix, Square, Tencent, Amazon, Spotify, Patagonia, The Washington Post, and the NBA.
Fast Company’s 50 Most Innovative Companies List recognizes leading enterprises and rising newcomers that exemplify the best in business and innovation. The list was curated from Fast Company’s Top 10 lists, which recognize pioneering companies across 36 categories, including health.
“CVS Health is honored to be included by Fast Company on their 50 Most Innovative Companies list and as one of the Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Health,” said Larry J. Merlo, CVS Health president and CEO in a statement. “As a pharmacy-innovation company, we are committed to finding new ways of delivering on our purpose of helping people on their path to better health and I am very proud that our enterprise achievements are being recognized.”
In 2017, CVS Pharmacy introduced a first-of-its kind prescription management system, ScriptPath. Using easy to understand icons, the new system was designed to improve patient understanding and enhance patient safety by simplifying how patients take medications and how caregivers give them. The personalized prescription schedule is generated by a proprietary scientific system which automatically reviews all of a patient’s current CVS Pharmacy prescription information and prescribers’ instructions and uses clinical data to provide a schedule of the most effective times of day to take the medications.
CVS received high marks for its Minute Clinic, walk-in clinics which accept most major health insurance, including Medicare and Medicaid health plans, staffed by nurse practitioners and physician assistants.
The clinics specialize in family health care and can diagnose, treat and write prescriptions for common family illnesses such as strep throat and ear, eye, sinus, bladder and bronchial infections. The clinics also treat minor injuries and provide vaccinations.
Fast Company also recognized CVS for developing a generic Epipen substitute, selling it at more than 83 percent less than the full retail price of the brand-name version of the product. The CVS Pharmacy-marketed generic is expected to cost nearly 68 percent less than the original manufacturer’s generic version of the epinephrine auto-injector, used to combat life-threatening allergic reactions.
The publication lauded CVS for discontinuing sales of tobacco products and sunscreen with an SPF lower than 15, and for removing products containing parabens & phthalates, as well.
Rob Borkowski is a PBN staff writer. Email him at Borkowski@PBN.com.
