Summary
- Pharmacists and pharmacies play critical roles in providing age-friendly care to older adults. The American Society of Consultant Pharmacists (ASCP) helps formalize the discipline’s role in integrating all 4Ms together, including Medication.
When it comes to providing reliable, equitable, high-quality care to older adults, pharmacists play a vital role. The 4Ms Framework of an Age-Friendly Health System (What Matters, Medication, Mentation, and Mobility) has spread to more than 6,000 sites of care, including hospitals, ambulatory sites, nursing homes, home health, convenient care clinics, and hospice. The evidence-based 4Ms are interrelated, and pharmacists shape all 4Ms. Jessica Androff, President of Consonus Pharmacy, explains: "What we do is not just about medication. We see triggers in other parts of the resident’s care that indicate something is not right. Our recommendations can help improve resident mentation, mobility, and ultimately help them do more of what matters. Pharmacists and medications are both just one piece of a bigger puzzle.”
The American Society of Consultant Pharmacists (ASCP), in partnership with the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy Peter Lamy Center on Drug Therapy and Aging, formally joined the Age-Friendly Health Systems movement in 2024. Drs. Nicole Brandt, Chad Worz, and Barbara Zarowitz with the EMERGE (Effecting Meaningful Education and Research in Geriatric Empowerment) team have led the way to formalize the role of pharmacists and pharmacies in the care of older adults across all 4Ms. Through the Age-Friendly Pharmacist Badge Program, pharmacists increase their knowledge and skills, and improve their approach to caring for older adults. More than 2,500 pharmacists have received age-friendly recognition thus far.
ASCP understood that providing age-friendly education to pharmacists was an important first step. Pharmacies as sites of care for older adults were the logical place to move next. In early 2026, the Age-Friendly Pharmacy recognition program was launched. ASCP recognizes long-term care and community pharmacies that demonstrate a commitment to age-friendly care. Consonus Pharmacy and Moloka’i Drugs Inc. are two pioneer age-friendly pharmacy corporations.
Consonus
Jessica Androff and her team serve thousands of older adults through Consonus Pharmacy, a large, regional long-term care pharmacy provider that is part of AgeRight Care Management Solutions. The company has nine locations that serve more than 750 care communities for older adults in 13 states.
Nursing home pharmacy consultants are medication management specialists who ensure patient safety and regulatory compliance. This critical role often becomes siloed from other team members. Androff recognizes the 4Ms as a pathway to improved team collaboration and better outcomes for residents. She says, “This is something we do in practice every day. The resident is at the center of our practice. The Age-Friendly Pharmacy recognition is a chance to formalize and celebrate the work we do. It aligns with our mission to do what matters most to the resident.”
Three quarters of Consonus pharmacists have achieved an Age-Friendly Pharmacist badge. Androff feels that this naturally drove the organization to wider adoption of age-friendly care and ultimately to pharmacy recognition. The team has noticed immediate impact on the morale of operational pharmacists and their connection to the well-being of residents. Furthermore, the impact reaches beyond the pharmacy bubble. Nursing home team members that Consonsus works with have noticed and expressed interest in pursuing nursing home recognition. Consonus pharmacists are positioned to collaborate as leaders of the 4Ms Framework in nursing homes.
Androff hopes to see age-friendly care principles expand across the broader AgeRight organization. The Therapy and Medicare Advantage plan teams have expressed interest in incorporating the 4Ms Framework into their own work, creating greater alignment across the continuum of care. Androff states, “Seeing it ebb and flow into our other business lines has been exciting.”
Androff’s advice to pharmacies interested in recognition is, “There is value here... Dig deep into your mission and align it with the 4Ms. Everything comes easily after that.”
Androff describes how the pharmacist age-friendly role comes to life with nursing homes: “Deprescribing is our number one [most frequent] recommendation in the nursing home. These recommendations result from the pharmacist’s knowledge of the 4Ms. They see resident mobility and mentation issues and consider how medication adjustments can be made to positively impact the resident’s quality of life by doing what matters to them.”
Moloka’i Drugs Inc.
Moloka’i Drugs, a community pharmacy, has been serving the community on a tiny island in Hawaii for 91 years. With a population of less than 7,000 people, Moloka’i has no resident physicians, and island residents often must travel to larger islands for medical care. Third generation owner-managers and sisters, Kimberly Svetin and Kelly Go, lead Moloka’i Drugs. Their goal is to serve the community, in the mold in which the pharmacy was founded by their grandfather and continued by their father. Go is the head pharmacist, and Svetin is the president. Molokai’s Drugs is the only pharmacy on the island and plays a vital role as one of the only consistent health care providers available.
On Moloka’i, people support each other. Svetin says, “[We] grow our own employees through public schools, scholarships, and the love of the island. All of our 23 employees would say that the reason they work in the pharmacy is to serve their community. It goes beyond pills in a box or bottle. We are here to serve the island and make the people healthier.”
Moloka’i Drugs conducts medication reconciliation with every prescription they see. This means that every patient is evaluated for medication side effects and interactions that might interfere with what matters, mentation, or mobility. This process works in reverse as well. When a patient comes into the pharmacy and is exhibiting signs or symptoms of a problem (e.g., dizziness), the pharmacist evaluates the medications and patient history to determine what they can do to help. Pharmacists employed by Moloka’i Drugs use their deep knowledge of the people they serve to honor what matters to them.
Earning Age-Friendly Pharmacy recognition was a natural fit. Both Go and Svetin saw it as the “pala pala” (Hawaiian for documentation) of their existing work across generations of people they and their family have known for lifetimes. It has also helped them stay relevant and retain employees in a changing landscape through providing improved internal workflows, modern pharmacy services to the island, and education and certification opportunities for employees.
Go and Svetin are looking optimistically to the next 90 years of Moloka’i Drugs. They have found a new generation of pharmacists to mentor and are modeling the ways of the community for them. Moloka’i is unique in many ways — and is also seeing an increase in the number of older adults similar to the rest of the country. Now that Age-Friendly Pharmacy recognition is in place, the next step is to incorporate the Long-Term Care at Home pharmacy program. Go and Svetin’s advice to other pharmacies is, “Concentrate on your team. Having the right people with the right training will move the process forward.”
Learn more about the Age-Friendly Pharmacist badge program and Age-Friendly Pharmacy recognition at a webinar on August 4, 2026 at 3 PM ET, hosted by ASCP ad IHI. Register now for “Empowering Pharmacists to Deliver Age-Friendly Care.”
Photo by by Nate Johnston on Unsplash.
Amanda Meier, BSW, MA, is an IHI Project Manager for Age-Friendly Health Systems.
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