Practicing pharmacists are highly trained and the most accessible healthcare professionals in the United States. Pharmacies have long played a critical role in public health by providing vaccinations, screenings, health education, and clinical referrals. Expanding STI care through pharmacies is a natural way to increase access and convenience for the community.
NACCHO, with support from the CDC’s Division of STD Prevention (DSTDP), funded five local health departments to design and implement a collaborative partnership with local pharmacies to expand STI services and care. The overall goal of the project was to offer more information about the operational feasibility of expanding STI patient care into pharmacy settings, how sustainable it would be, any barriers and facilitators to implementation, and how the partnership itself would work.
Generally, the partnership models fell into two categories:
- Self-collect STI testing either via mail-order or picked up from the pharmacy, and
- Expedited or more accessible dispensing of medicine to the patient or their partner(s) at the pharmacy.
The sites found the partnerships feasible — suggesting that health departments can, and should, consider leveraging partnerships with pharmacies to expand STI care and treatment. These partnerships have the potential to decrease barriers and increase access to STI testing and treatment through multiple modalities. However, successful implementation requires active engagement in process development with pharmacists and champions, and public outreach and advertising to raise the visibility of these services.
The final report on the project, including deep dives into models and a suite of tools and resources, can be found here.
