Following a series of walkouts by pharmacy workers at retail giants CVS and Walgreens, organizers have formed The Pharmacy Guild, a group meant to help unionize retail pharmacy employees.

Across the US, the workers have long expressed concern over short-staffing and high workloads that they say can jeopardize patient safety. Historically, there’s been no widespread retail pharmacy worker unionization, Shane Jerominski, one of the founding advocates behind the guild, told Healthcare Brew.

“We’re speaking out to help frontline pharmacy professionals organize a national union […] and also trying to organize a group that’s really keyed in on all of the problems facing community pharmacists and retail pharmacy,” Jerominski said.

The guild’s priority is advocating for retail pharmacies to implement staffing and workload standards that ensure pharmacists have time to provide adequate care. It’s not intended just for workers at the “big three” retail pharmacies (CVS, Walgreens, and Rite Aid); it’s meant for pharmacy workers who feel that being “inadequately staffed” puts “patient safety at risk,” Jerominski said.

Keep reading here.—MA

Do you work in healthcare or have information about the industry that we should know? Email Maia at [email protected]. For confidential conversations, ask Maia for her number on Signal.

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It’s been an eventful year in healthcare news to say the least.

From major mergers and acquisitions to continued Covid-era policies and coverage requirement changes, 2023 kept us (and our readers) busy. And the rash of healthcare-related news is expected to continue in 2024.

Ahead of the new year, Healthcare Brew asked various industry leaders and observers for their predictions on what trends may emerge and how new technologies, like artificial intelligence (AI), could shape the health sector in 2024. Here’s what they told us:

Health companies and hospital systems will embrace new AI-enabled software and capabilities, albeit slowly.

Keep reading here.—SY

Do you work in healthcare or have information about the industry that we should know? Email Shannon at [email protected]. For confidential conversations, ask Shannon for her number on Signal.

Just like your family promises, we swear we love each and every one of our stories equally. Still, some stories stood out as reader favorites, and we’d be remiss to let them go unnoticed. Without further ado, here are the top 10 stories published by your favorite healthcare reporters in 2023. We’ll see you in 2024!

1. How does a VC decide to fund a healthcare startup? by Maia Anderson

Venture capitalists (VCs) are taking the world by storm, and the healthcare industry isn’t immune to their influence. Maia interviewed Sharla Grass, a health tech VC at Greycroft, to demystify the process.

2. How the resumption of Medicaid redeterminations could affect enrollment by Shannon Young

Shannon’s story from February really hit the nail on the head about what was to come from the Medicaid unwinding process, i.e., lots of bureaucracy and enrollees falling through the cracks. Any story about Medicaid redeterminations is well received by our readers, but this one especially stood out.

Keep reading here.—AE

Do you work in healthcare or have information about the industry that we should know? Email Amanda at [email protected]. For confidential conversations, ask Amanda for her number on Signal.

Today’s top healthcare reads.

Stat: An experimental cancer vaccine, in combination with Merck’s Keytruda, “reduced the risk of death or relapse in patients with the most deadly form of skin cancer by half after roughly three years.” (CNBC)

Quote: “It is incorrect to say the money isn’t there to pay for elder care. It’s there, in the form of profits that accrue to the owners of these facilities.”—Jim Castrone, a retired financial controller from New Mexico, on the for-profit models dominating long-term care (the New York Times/KFF Health News)

Read: A graphic designer wrote about her personal experience with long Covid—and created a gorgeous data visualization of it to boot. (the New York Times)

Hear’s to upgrades: hear.com just dropped the world’s first-ever hearing aid with dual processing, which seriously upgrades sound and speech clarity. Check ’em out with a no-risk trial.*

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