How health systems are building specialty pharmacy programs
By Caroline Hudson June 01, 2026
Excerpt:
How do partnerships play a role?
Many health systems with limited resources turn to third-party companies for support in building, expanding and/or maintaining specialty pharmacy programs. The companies bring expertise in navigating payer contracts, implementing technological tools, earning accreditation and managing new medications.
“Specialty pharmacy is wildly complex, and it’s so unique for every single hospital and health system because it has to be localized,” said Allison Arant, senior vice president of client development and marketing at Clearway Health, which spun out from Boston Medical Center Health System.
Companies such as Clearway, which works with 13 hospitals and health systems, and Shields, which has about 75 health system partners, embed pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and pharmacy liaisons into day-to-day operations to work alongside system employees.
The model incentivizes both partners to deliver results, said Robert DiGregorio, chief pharmacy officer of pharmacotherapy services at the Brooklyn Hospital Center in New York, which partnered with Clearway.
“We felt that we had an insurance policy, if you will,” DiGregorio said. “If we weren’t growing, then they were not going to benefit either.”