Josh Rimany, owner of Dilworth Drug and Wellness Center in Charlotte, N.C., sees the future of community pharmacy, and it doesn’t revolve around simply dispensing prescriptions. “The days of dispensing alone are virtually over,” he says. And for that, the 1998 University of Connecticut pharmacy grad says he’s glad. “I don’t want to fill 500 scripts a day to pay the bills. That’s not my model.” Rimany, who built Dilworth Drug in 2008 from the ground up with wife Jamie, sees a future for pharmacy that more closely resembles the integrative medicine model. “Our philosophy is focused on patients taking control of their health, not the ‘pill for every ill’ approach,” Rimany explains. “Our staff is trained on complementary and alternative treatments.
We align ourselves with like-minded health care professionals and utilize a referral system to introduce other integrative and alternative treatments, such as yoga, meditation, Pilates, naturopaths, and acupuncture.” Integrative medicine, which utilizes both conventional and alternative approaches to the healing process, has gained a lot of traction in recent years in part, Rimany believes, because the traditional health care model isn’t working for many people. “Chronic diseases, for example, cannot be cured by a medication,” Rimany says. “You’re essentially just treating the symptoms with another pill.”
FOCUS ON NUTRITION Rimany’s interest in integrative medicine started with his interest in clinical nutrition and nutritional supplements, which he believes have a critical place in every community pharmacy. “Pharmacists are poised to become a provider of clinical nutrition services,” Rimany says, emphasizing its emphasis on clinical evidence. “Clinical nutrition is very similar to the pharmaceutical care model, and it offers documented clinical information,” he says. “Whenever you’re basing your recommendations on clinical information, it means better outcomes for your patients.”