Pilot project has smooth takeoff, lands a renewal

Kelly Hunt, ’95, has done it again. The founder of multiple pharmacies and creator of Phil the Pill, Hunt turned his creative energy to helping improve ReGenesis’ Migrant Medical Teams (MMTs)through pharmacy.

Last year, the chief of pharmacy operations at ReGenesis Health Care asked the South Carolina Board of Pharmacy to extend one of ReGenesis’ pharmacy licenses so his pharmacists could go with the MMTs when they visited agricultural farms to see patients. The board agreed to a one-year pilot program.

Recently, Hunt sought permission to continue the pharmacists’ participation in the program.

“I shared our health outcome data, our ability to securely transmit and receive the prescriptions, and how we transported everything back and forth,” he said. The board gave an enthusiastic unanimous approval and Hunt sprang into action. “We scheduled three more farms in the next couple of weeks before these folks leave due to their visas expiring. We are going to load them up so they can stay healthy until we see them in the spring!”

ReGenesis has an extensive outreach program for rural areas. The Mobile Medical Center Services “Care in Motion” program gives access to comprehensive health care services in Spartanburg, Cherokee, and Union counties. A truck tows a mobile medical center trailer into an agricultural community and offers multiple services, such as primary care, screenings, vaccinations, mammography, dental care, lab work, and many other services.

Having pharmacists be part of the team adds an important and effective health care function, for which the patients are very grateful.

“It’s such a privilege to use our profession to impact these patients like we have,” Hunt said. “I can’t tell you how appreciative they’ve been.”

Since the ReGenesis teams never refuse medications due to anyone’s inability to pay, sometimes that gratitude takes an unusual form.

“Occasionally, we get ‘paid’ in produce,” Hunt said. “They bring me peaches, strawberries, apples – who would’ve thought I’d spend 30 years as a registered pharmacist to be paid in peaches! But I absolutely love it!”