Hometown Health Center in Schenectady to get pharmacy

PHOTOGRAPHER: Erica Miller

Joe Gambino, CEO of Hometown Health Centers, spoke at the Schenectady facility on Monday to announce a partnership with Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Service, which will provide low-income residents in Schenectady County with access to a pharmacy.

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Patients at Hometown Health Center in Schenectady will have access to an on-site pharmacy run and staffed by students from the Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences beginning early next year.

The students will be overseen by a licensed pharmacist, but they will be closely involved in the pharmacy’s daily operations and patient interactions, Hometown Health CEO Joe Gambino said during an announcement Monday.

“The students will be getting on-site training actually taking care of patients,” Gambino said. “It’s an experience that you can’t just get through the college books.”

College officials and current students also trumpeted the partnership, which is set to replace the center’s old Walgreens pharmacy that closed in the spring.

Chris Bartolillo, a fifth-year pharmacy student, said the opportunity to work at the student-run pharmacy will provide experiences that go beyond the chances students have while working at storefront or hospital pharmacies.

“It’s not just a student working in a pharmacy, it’s a student-run pharmacy,” Bartolillo said. “It is the realness that is special, really helping someone that needs help, because in class it’s mock patients and there aren’t a lot of surprises.”

Not only will the pharmacy students have a chance to work in a clinical setting, college President Greg Dewey said, but they will also be in a position to connect with the physicians at Hometown Health and experience the needs of a medically underserved population.

Dewey said the partnership will give the college a chance to work toward addressing deeper health care issues and try to “budge the dial” on health indicators that trouble some communities. He said it would a be an experiment in “neighborhood health care.”

The pharmacy is expected to serve around 200 patients a day and will offer services that go beyond traditional pharmaceutical disbursement. The student and professional pharmacists will assist patients with wellness counseling, disease prevention and medication management, as well as offer regular health screenings.

David Skory, health director at Hometown Health, said the new in-house pharmacy will allow the health center to be “more analytical” about its patients’ prescription use and how effective their treatments are.

“Since we are sharing patients in common, we can have discussions about the appropriateness of a treatment,” Skory said. “When you are working with the pharmacy down the street, you can’t always have those conversations.”

Reach Gazette reporter Zachary Matson at 395-3120, [email protected] or @zacharydmatson on Twitter.