CVS Health Corp. on Thursday announced four new clinical affiliations with healthcare systems located across the country.
The pharmacy giant has teamed up with John Muir Health in Northern California; University of Chicago Medical Center; Novant Health in North Carolina and the University of Michigan Health System in Michigan.
Under the agreement, CVS pharmacists can provide physicians at the participating systems with data on a patient's prescription history. Nurse practitioners at MinuteClinic, the retail clinic division of CVS, will be able to electronically share information from visits to the patient's primary-care provider.
CVS and the systems will begin to integrate communication between their electronic health-record systems “as quickly as possible,” according to a spokeswoman.
“By allowing our electronic health records and information systems to communicate and share important information about the patients we collectively serve, we will have a more comprehensive view of our patients, which can aid in healthcare decision making and help ensure patients adhere to important medications for chronic diseases,” said Dr. Troyen Brennan, chief medical officer of CVS Health, in a statement.
The partnerships will also encourage collaboration among the systems and MinuteClinic to plan "strategies around chronic care and wellness,” according to the news release.
Patients from the systems will also have access to medication counseling, chronic disease monitoring and wellness programs at CVS/pharmacy stores and MinuteClinic locations.
The latest affiliations bring CVS' total clinical collaborations to nearly 70. In July 2014, the company partnered with four health systems under similar agreements.
