Congresswoman Michele Bachmann will talk about the infwluns of the tea Party Heading into the midterm elections. In the afternoon, defense secretary chuck hagel will deliver remarks to the association of the u. S. Army. Hes expected to talk about the number of active Duty Service Members needed to meet u. S. Strategic needs, live coverage begins at 12 30 eastern. Now remarks from cvs, he suss the companys decision this year to stop selling Tobacco Products including e cigarettes. This part of his remarks from the National Press club is about 20 minutes. Thank you for their warm welcome and gamp, everybody. The impact that thats having on consumers, employers, health care providers, certainly our government. Ill also describe some of the solutions that were bringing forward to address what many have referred to as this cost quality access con dun drum that health care is facing today. I think everybody is familiar with the cvs brand, last year we celebrated a significant milestone, it was our 50th anniversary and we have come a long way since that very first store opened up in lowell, massachusetts back in 1963. All along the way, we have worked hard to stay true to our focus on the customer, working to create value and constantly innovating to meet customers needs. We have more than 71,700 locations all across the country. We are much more than a pharmacy company. When you think about all these businesses, iltsz really this unique concept of options that allows us to create real value for our patients, our customers and our clients all across the country. Im sure many of you in this room, have seen work for companies that have their mission, they have their vision. At cvs health we call it our purpose. And that purpose is simply we work hard to help people on their path to Better Health. According to the independent office of the act ware of the u. S. , the health share of kbloes domestic product will inyees from 17 to more than 19 by 2023. And while this is lower than the growth experienced over the last two decades, Health Spending is still growing faster than average economic growth. The real world translation to those numbers is the fact that it becomes more challenging for people to quickly access quality care through the traditional care channels. You ask the question, how did we get there . If you look over the past 15 years, i think it shows us that Health Care Coverage has been dominated by employer funded insurance, and while employers and insurers and Health Care Companies have worked hard to bring innovation to the market in terms of improving the quality of care, we also know that millions of americans remain uninsured and often without needed medications. At the same time theres tremendous growth in medicare, its driven in large part by what we like to call this silver tsunami, the fact that there are 10,000 baby boomers who become eligible for medicare every day. Now this means over 16 million new people becoming medicare eligible by 2019. And it also means were facing a longterm increase in the demand for services and the use of medications, another challenge is the increasing prevalence of chronic disease. About half of all americans suffer from chronic diseases and this is expected to rise in the next 20 years. Chronic inside accounts for three out of every four dollars being spent on health care. And the number of people that dont take prescription, as prescribed, were calling it an epidemic, there are a number of studies out costing our Health Care System about 300 billion a year in avoidable and unnecessary costs. So i think you can see there are a lot of factors that are contributing to Health Care Spending and there is no question that we must and can do more to slow the growth of health care costs. Now i think we can all agree the Health Care System is also evolving, first theres the Affordable Care act. And when the law is fully impmented, well see more than 30 million newly insured americans, with coverage provided by employers. Positions they have traditi traditionally operated in fee for services. This is beginning to change as they now take on more risk for participation and Accountable Care organizations and patient centered medical homes and as a result, theyre now cvs heals playing an Important Health care trend. Another trend, consumers are more informed and theyre starting to play an increasingly active you look at the growth of private exchanges, the emergence of public exchanges, theyre putting the decision for po choice directly into the hands of consumers. Finally, theres this transition to a digital society, were all experiencing it, its transformed how wily, how businesses behave, how consumers act within their day to day lives, although this has been slower in health care, significant change is under way. The reality, in kind of innovation, its not optional. In fact there are many that believe the Health Care Industry will change more in the next ten years than it has in the past 50, health care will be purchased, it will be delivered and it will be managed very differently going forward. Now im convinced that one very important avenue to improve quality, cost and access is rooted in pharmacy care. Its reflected in many of the things that were doing at cvs health to drive solutions. If you look back in history, traditionally people have thought about pharmacies as pill dispensarie dispensaries, but we know that pharmacy is much more than that. Pharmacy is extemding the front lines of health care to deliver Better Outcomes more affordably to the people that we serve. And cvs health is driving many innovative approaches to reinventing pharmacy, with the ultimate goal to once again help more people on their path to Better Health. The ways in which we do this is very different than how we have helped customers in the past. I think one of the greatest assets that we have that drives innovation lies in our feedback. Pharmacists are in a very unique position to help. They are a highly trusted resource for patients. For many years now, the gallup poll has septemb broad range counseling and interventions and one of the opportunities we can address is that issue i mentioned earlier, patients not taking their medications as prescribed, if you go back to the statement i made earlier, that about half of all americans suffer from chronic disease, and most chronic diseases are dreeted with some type of drug therapy, and this is where the statistics start getting alarming, because one out of three patients who start a maintenance prescription will dpe side to discontinue medication before their first refill is even due. More than onehalf of patients take their doses prescribed by their physicians and three out of four people will stop taking medication within the first year of beginning therapy for a newly diagnosed disease. I mentioned earlier, as mitch as 2,300 obviously, solving this medication adherence epidemic, it presents a huge opportunity to improve health and at the same time lower costs. We have a solution, we call it pharmacy advisor. And its a portfolio of it connects patients with pharmacists who help help them stay on their prescribed medications, preventing complications, these can range from phone counseling to email reminders and in store reminders and home consultation for some of the more complex cases. Research is showing that its working. And we looked at interventions for people with diabetes and the fact that they were very effective at not just increasing adherence, but providing a return on investment. For every dollar spent, there was an roi of 3. And today pharmacy eadvisor is available for 10 we developed another program that we call specialty connect. It offers patients choice and flexibility in how they access their specialty medications. And, you know, if youre wondering, well, exactly what is a specialty med. These are prescription therapies for very complex conditions, like hepatitis c or ms, rheumatoid arthritis, cancer, in addition to being very costly, often times the drug requires special handling. We can offer the patients getting prescriptions by mail or a new option, to drop off their specialty prescriptions at any cvs pharmacy. This increased flexibility and access, it makes it easier for people to get on and stay on their therapy. Minute clinic is another innovation helping us to address access to care issues, thats being created by this influx of newly insured and statement a growing shortage of primary care physicians. Minute clinic is continuing to stand its foot print. We plan to have 1,500 clinics by 2017. Today Minute Clinic provides high quality care for acute needs as well as chronic and wellness needs, vaccinations, screenings, weight loss programs, chronic disease monitoring. Minute clinic is staffed by highly trusted Family Practice assistants. Were open seven days a week, including evenings and holidayings and we see patients on a walk in basis, no appointment required. 50 of all of our viz skits actually occur during the evening hours and on weekends. We believe Minute Clinic is both replacing the use of higher cost sites such as Emergency Rooms as well as addressing unmet needs for access to primary care. In both of those activities will help to hold down the swroefr all cost of care. We do not advocate for or believe that the family physician is going away or should go away. We see our Minute Clinic offering as both complementary and collaborative with primary care medical homes and helpful to our Health Care System overall. 6 finally theres our focus on innovation. Customers with both integrated view of their medications, and the ability to refill or even transfer them between the retail and mail channels. We have added features to our mobile app, you can scan your refill, you can check interactions, giving customers on the go easy access to customer information. Well be adding a virtual pill box and daily reminders to help patients and care givers actually track medication adherence. So you can see how our unique Business Model is allowing us to deliver programs and services to improve health and at the same time lower costs. So these are just some of the ways were helping people on their path to Better Health. Thisablies us to this topic that hurts health and thats tobacco. And the numbers here are pretty staggering. More than 42 million adults smoke. 480,000 people die each year from tobacco related illness. Smoking today cause s 87 of lug cancer deaths. 79 of all chronic cases of pulmonary disease. The costs attributed to smoking and exposure to smoke is approaching in a place where health care is delivered for some time now. At the same time, there is this 2 billion in annual Tobacco Sales to be considered. We listened to what our colleagues, customers, communities in which we live and conserve are saying got tobacco, as well as leading Health Advocacy groups. We step back, we use that purpose again on their path to Better Health as our decision filter and we brought multitippal viewpoints to the Table Including those of our chief medical officer, human resources, operations, the list goes on and we weigh both the shortterm and the longterm opportunities, as you might expect, there was very thoughtful debate and discussion and as a unified Management Team along with our board of directors, we made the decision to quit tobacco for good. We announced that decision back in february, february 5 and six months later, were officially tobacco free, one month ahead of schedule and were proud to say that were the First National pharmacy chain in the country to take this action to support the wellbeing of our patients and our customers. [ applause ] now we engaged leading Health Organizations including campaign for tobacco free kids, the American Lung association, cancer society, the ama, Robert Wood Johnson foundation, American Pharmacists Association and these organizations and many others have rallied behichd our decision with public statements adding to the chorus that why pharmacies should remain smoke free. Consumers, celebrities, health, business and political leaders and theres no question that a National Conversation about tobacco has been reignited. We do believe that reducing access to Tobacco Products will help reduce tobacco use. And our chief medical officer, dr. Troy brennan recently shared the results of a new study that showed in boston and san francisco, where retailers with pharmacies are not permitted to sell tobacco, there was up to a 13. 3 decrease in the purchasers of Tobacco Products. At the same time, in quitting tobacco, we also watched a comprehensive and uniquely personalized Smoking Cessation campaign to help the many smokers a who want to quit. We built a comprehensive Smoking Cessation campaign. Our 00 Minute Clinics, the fact that we have 26,000 pharmacists and Nurse Practitioners all across the country and it includes four critical components, an assessment to determine the smokers readiness to quit, education to provide smokers the information and tools thiey nee to quit, medication to help curb the desire to use tobacco and coaching to help consumers stay motivated and prevent relapse. It can nearly double quit rates from 7 to 15 . You might be surprised to know, it takes on average seven times before someone is successful in quits. We want those people to never quit quitting until theyre successful. September 3 was also a historic day for our company for one more reason. Its the day we announced our new name, cvs health, its certainly inspired people on their path to Better Health. I think all of us at cvs heal Health Leadership role on to be back ctobacco. Its the right thing to do, just like our decision to quit se selling Tobacco Products. Tobacco has no place in a health care setting, including pharmacies. So to sum it up, we dont see exiting the sale of tobacco is an important decision for just us, we see it as an important decision for public health. So in closing, let me come back to where i started. As a pharmacist myself, i know the value our profession can play in the lives of others. I also know that theres even more that pharmacy can and will do to improve both care and affordability. And our 200,000 cvs Health Colleagues committed to me in committing to you that well do our part to provide better, more Affordable Care to people young and old all across the country and help them on their path to Better Health. You can watch this entire National Press club event at cspan. Org. Coming up on the next national journal, concerning the texas nurse who tested for ebola and calls for new standards to protect Health Care Workers from the disease. Then a look at the 2014 midterm elections, with tim phillips, president of americans for prosperity and his push to make the Affordable Care act the number one issue. You can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. Cspans 2015 student cam competition is under way, 150 prices totaling
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