New Haven celebrated the opening of Grand Pharmacy located within the Fair Haven community.
On Tuesday, a ribbon cutting was held at Grand Pharmacy located at 111 Grand Ave.
The pharmacy is part of the Fair Haven Community Health Care Center and aims to provide residents with substantial savings in prescription costs.
Dr. Suzanne Lagarde, CEO of the Fair Haven Community Health Care Center said this is the second pharmacy of its kind, the first is located in Branford.
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"What drives us is this desire to provide as much as we can, services to our community so that everyone has access to high quality care,” Lagarde said.
As a federally qualified healthcare center, Lagarde said they are able to provide low medication costs as long as the patient is seen through the center’s doctors.
“If people are uninsured or if they’re underinsured, if you’re underinsured you may have an insurance policy through your employer, but that insurance policy may have high deductibles or high copays, those we considered uninsured and we can help those patients with medications.”
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She explained the lower costs are possible through a federal program called 340B.
“340B allows us to pass those savings on to our insured and under-insured, because we serve a large immigrant population in Fair Haven there are many of our patients who are uninsured and hence for us to be able to pass those savings onto them in many ways its life saving and life altering.”
A unique feature at Grand Pharmacy is they are integrated with electronic medical records, something Lagarde said very few pharmacies have.
“The doctor, the clinician have the same information that the pharmacists have and the communication between the two is instant through the EMR. The pharmacists knows immediately what your allergies are, your healthcare lists, what your medical problems are, whether you’ve ever had any drug interactions, any medications, that’s all immediately available because of that shared EMR,” Lagarde said.
Mayor Justin Elicker said the project has been a long time coming for the area.
“From pizza to now a pharmacy is a big change but overall having access to a pharmacy particularly run by the Fair Haven Community Center is a great thing for the community,” Mayor Elicker said.
He added the opening of Grand Pharmacy will be a huge resource for the Fair Haven neighborhood.
“It's a huge benefit in the neighborhood run by a partner of the city that really cares for the people they serve.”
Grand Pharmacy is equipped with bilingual staff and is open six days a week.
