Walgreens is making a big commitment to mental health by launching a major campaign to raise awareness, screen people for mental illness and to connect people to the appropriate care.
The Deerfield, Illinois-based pharmacy chain wants to screen 3 million people by the end of 2017. “It’s a big, bold goal,” acknowledged Walgreens CMO Dr. Harry Leider. “We’ll help a lot of people if we achieve that,” he said.
Walgreens is collaborating with Mental Health America, a century-old nonprofit that advocates for mental health screening and treatment, and with telehealth company MDLive. While Walgreens already works with MDLive to provide telehealth services to customers, the pharmacy company has begun offering one-click access to a behavioral telehealth platform from MDLive subsidiary Breakthrough. Breakthrough has a network of more than 1,000 behavioral health professionals.
Walgreens has built an “Answer Center” on its website that includes links to screening tools, a therapist finder and the MDLive remote chat function.
“I think the big idea here is that we’re promoting that mental health should be treated just as any physical health condition,” Leider said.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
Mental Health America coordinates Mental Health Month each May. “Adding the Walgreens suite of supports and services to our program will strengthen our offerings, and help many more people recover from serious mental health conditions,” Paul Gionfriddo, president and CEO of Mental Health America said in a statement.
All told, the program has four main pillars, Leider said.
- Raising awareness about mental health and reducing the stigma around the topic.
- “There are now these really easy tools to help with that,” Leider said. These include PHQ-9, the depression module of the Patient Health Questionnaire.
- Facilitating help and support for people who need it.
- Supporting those getting treatment. For example, pharmacists will be trained to call patients who are new to taking antidepressants. “Patients often don’t know you have to be on an antidepressant for 4-5 weeks before you can evaluate whether it’s working,” Leider explained.
Most of the pharmacist outreach will take place by phone, Leider said, for privacy reasons. Nurse practitioners will be able to ask questions and provide advice in private exam rooms at Walgreens Healthcare Clinic locations, he added.
Photos: Flickr user Mike Mozart, Walgreens.com screen grab
