NACDS represents traditional drug stores, supermarkets, and mass merchants with pharmacies - from regional chains with few stores to national companies.

Innovative programs of chain pharmacies and their supplier partners deliver unsurpassed value – improving health and wellness and reducing healthcare costs. Through face-to-face counseling, the pharmacist-patient relationship helps people take medications safely and correctly. This improved “medication adherence,” means a higher quality of life, and the prevention of costly treatments. In addition to this widely appreciated role of pharmacists, innovative community pharmacy services – vaccinations, health education, screenings, disease management and more – also contribute to the modern healthcare delivery system.

Community pharmacies are highly accessible. Nearly all Americans live within five miles of a community pharmacy. Pharmacists are highly trusted professionals as well. In the annual Gallup survey of honesty and integrity across professions, including but not limited to healthcare, pharmacists have ranked in the top three for nine consecutive years, and in every year but one since 1981.

NACDS represents traditional drug stores, supermarkets, and mass merchants with pharmacies – from regional chains with four stores to national companies. Chains operate more than 41,000 pharmacies and employ more than 3.8 million employees, including 132,000 pharmacists. They fill over 2.7 billion prescriptions annually, which is more than 72 percent of annual prescriptions in the United States.

The total economic impact of all retail stores with pharmacies transcends their over $1 trillion in annual sales. Every $1 spent in these stores creates a ripple effect of $1.81 in other industries, for a total economic impact of $1.81 trillion, equal to 12 percent of GDP.

In conjunction with the 2012 NACDS RxIMPACT Day on Capitol Hill - when community pharmacy advocates tell their story to legislators and policymakers in Washington, D.C. - Drug Store News prepared a briefing document titled "RxIMPACT: Community pharmacy brings innovation to patient care." The briefing document highlights examples of chain pharmacies' advancement of healthcare, one patient at a time.

The mission of NACDS is to advance the interests and objectives of the chain community pharmacy industry, by fostering its growth and promoting its role as a provider of healthcare services and consumer products.

http://www.nacds.org