$5 Million State Award Targets Oregon’s Pharmacy Deserts, Where Patients Drive Hours for a Refill
Oregon has the second-fewest pharmacies per capita in the nation. The Pharmacy Foundation of Oregon will deploy prescription lockers, staffed delivery and telepharmacy while landmark federal PBM reforms remain years from taking effect.
WEST LINN, Ore. — The Pharmacy Foundation of Oregon (PFO) has been awarded $5,035,218 by the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) to bring secure prescription lockers, staffed prescription delivery and telepharmacy services to rural and frontier communities where currently the nearest pharmacy counter can be an hour or more away.
The funding comes through three Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP) Catalyst Awards. OHA announced this week that it is distributing roughly $80.1 million in Catalyst funding to 85 organizations leading 103 projects statewide, targeting maternal and child health, co-occurring behavioral health conditions, chronic disease, and aging in place. PFO’s three projects address the final two: keeping older adults in their homes and keeping patients with chronic conditions on their medications. All three will be carried out in partnership with OHA-designated Critical Access Pharmacies and rural community partners.
The need is not abstract. Oregon has the second-fewest retail pharmacies per capita of any state, trailing only Alaska, according to an Associated Press analysis of National Council for Prescription Drug Programs data. Oregon has roughly 610 retail pharmacies for 4.2 million people — about 14.4 per 100,000 residents. Wheeler County has none at all. In Gilliam County, one independent pharmacy serves patients across some 3,000 square miles. The towns of Arlington, Irrigon and Umatilla have each lost their pharmacy. For a patient in Fossil managing diabetes or hypertension, the nearest pharmacy counter is an hour away, each direction. That is not an inconvenience. It is a reason people ration medication.
“When a pharmacy in a town of 800 closes, it does not reopen,” said Dan Kennedy, President of the Pharmacy Foundation of Oregon. “The patients do not move. The prescriptions do not stop. What disappears is the last health care provider in that community you could see without an appointment. We cannot wait for the market to fix that, because the market is what caused it.”
Project 1: Secure prescription pickup lockers
The first project expands PFO’s rural prescription locker model, which was piloted in Fossil. Secure, temperature-controlled lockers let patients retrieve prescriptions close to home, with integrated communication features that connect them to a pharmacist on screen.
PFO will work with partner pharmacies, host sites and technology vendors to complete site-readiness assessments, support Board of Pharmacy registration and compliance, install units, and run local patient education through clinics, senior centers and community health partners. The model preserves pharmacist oversight and secure chain of custody while eliminating the long drive to the nearest pharmacy.
Project 2: Rural prescription delivery, with a navigator on board
The Rural Pharmacy Prescription Delivery Vehicle Program helps participating Critical Access Pharmacies launch dedicated medication delivery services, funding vehicles, to serve Heppner, Oakridge, John Day, La Grande, Vale, and Cave Junction.
What distinguishes the program is who is driving. Each site will recruit a bilingual Community Health Worker who is also a pharmacy technician — a staff member trained both to deliver medication and to recognize when a patient needs more than medication. Deliveries to homebound, mobility-impaired, and Spanish-speaking patients become an opportunity for a warm handoff to housing, food, transportation or in-home support services, using county-specific resource directories developed with 211info and regional health partners.
For older adults, that combination is the difference between a package on a porch and a reason to stay in the home they have.
Project 3: Telepharmacy in a pharmacy desert
The Telepharmacy Expansion Project will establish a licensed hub-and-spoke remote dispensing site in an Oregon community that currently has no pharmacy at all. The project covers site selection with local health partners, Oregon Board of Pharmacy remote dispensing site application, secure dispensing space, video consultation technology, automated dispensing equipment and pharmacist oversight from a supervising hub pharmacy.
Once operational, the site will offer routine dispensing, pharmacist counseling, medication therapy management, immunizations and adherence support. A Certified Pharmacy Technician staffs the location on site, under live video supervision by a pharmacist during all operating hours.
“We did not propose ideas. We proposed things we have already watched work,” said Brian Mayo, Executive Director of the Pharmacy Foundation of Oregon. “A locker in Fossil. A delivery route out of Heppner. A pharmacist on a screen. Each one started with a problem a rural pharmacist described to us first, and each one exists because a community refused to accept that losing its pharmacy meant losing its medication. What this award changes is the scale.”
Built on Critical Access Pharmacies
PFO will implement all three projects with OHA-designated Critical Access Pharmacies and rural community partners. Those pharmacies will operate the lockers, run the delivery routes, support telepharmacy workflows and remain the local point of contact for patients. Every dollar is spent reinforcing existing local pharmacy infrastructure rather than replacing it.
The Oregon State Pharmacy Association (OSPA) will support this PFO initiative by engaging Oregon’s pharmacy community, providing workflow and regulatory guidance, assisting with communications and education, and helping to develop a sustainability plan for after the grant period.
“PBM reform is necessary, and Oregon pharmacists will continue to advocate for it in the 2027 session and in Congress,” said Korin Richardson, President of the Oregon State Pharmacy Association Board of Directors. “However, a patient in Wheeler County cannot wait for a reimbursement rule that takes effect in 2029. These PFO projects make medication accessible now by supporting local pharmacies, rather than sending more prescriptions to mail-order warehouses owned by the same companies that set the payment rates.”
What happens next
PFO and its partners begin implementation immediately upon receipt of funds from OHA. Year 1 funding supports eligible project costs starting now, and Year 2 activities begin in November and may extend through September 30, 2028. Sustainability planning — identifying the reimbursement, partnership and operating models that keep each site running after the grant ends — begins in Year 1, not at the end.
“Our family has served the Grande Ronde Valley for decades, and we know our patients by name,” said Bob Coulter, owner at Red Cross Drug. “This locker lets us extend that personal care into a community we couldn’t otherwise reach every day. It keeps people on their medications, and that’s what changes outcomes.”
About the Pharmacy Foundation of Oregon
The Pharmacy Foundation of Oregon is a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing pharmacy access, innovation and patient care across the state, with a particular focus on rural and underserved communities. Through partnerships, the foundation funds and supports projects that bring the expertise of Oregon’s pharmacies to the patients who need them most. Learn more and support the work at https://oregonpharmacy.org/donations/.
The Oregon Rural Health Transformation Program is supported by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award totaling $197,271,577.67, with 100 percent funded by CMS/HHS. The contents of this release are those of the Pharmacy Foundation of Oregon and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement by, CMS/HHS or the U.S. Government.
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