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CVS Health (CVS) Progresses With Safe Medication Approach

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CVS Health (CVS - Free Report) recently completed the rollout of its time delay safe technology at 213 CVS Pharmacy locations, including those in Target stores, across three states in southern United States. This is part of the company’s goal to support law enforcement, help build safer communities and fight against escalating organized retail crime.

This will help deter pharmacy robberies and diversion of controlled substance narcotic medications. As far as CVS Health is concerned, this will help in retaining the company’s store inventories within pharmacy locations.

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The installation of CVS’ time delay safe technology supports each of these states' partnerships with local and state law enforcement and the retail community. These safes are targeted to prevent pharmacy robberies and associated diversion of controlled substance medications by electronically delaying the time required by pharmacy employees to open them.

In this regard, the controlled substance medications include opioid medications, such as oxycodone and hydrocodone.

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The aforementioned CVS Pharmacy locations will now have a feature that will notify customers about the chain's time-delay safe technology. Per the announcements, the states and corresponding number of pharmacy locations include Louisiana (133), Mississippi (57) and Arkansas (23).

A major feature of this time delay safe function is that it cannot be overridden and is designed to thwart robbery attempts. All CVS Pharmacy locations with this technology display visible signage warning that time delay safes are in use to prevent on-demand access to controlled substance narcotics.

CVS Health's Safe Medication Approaches

CVS Health first implemented the time delay safe technology in 2015 at  CVS Pharmacy locations across Indianapolis, where instances of pharmacy robbery were high at that time. With the implementation of time delay safes, the company saw a 70% decline in pharmacy robberies at Indianapolis stores. Since then, the company has introduced time delay safes across 32 states nationwide, and the District of Columbia, resulting in a 50% decline in robberies at CVS pharmacies in those local communities.

According to CVS Health, the time delay safe program is one of its multiple initiatives to help address and prevent prescription medication misuse and diversion.

The company currently supports more than 4,300 safe medication disposal units at CVS Pharmacy locations and through local law enforcement organizations nationwide. These existing medication disposal units have collected more than 4 million pounds of unwanted medications that might otherwise have been diverted, misused, or ended up in the water supply.

Share Price Performance

Over the past year, CVS Health has outperformed its industry. The stock has gained 18.4% compared with 3.1% dip of the industry.

Zacks Rank and Key Picks

Currently, CVS Health carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

A few better-ranked stocks in the broader medical space that investors can consider are AMN Healthcare Services, Inc. (AMN - Free Report) , ShockWave Medical, Inc. (SWAV - Free Report) and McKesson Corporation (MCK - Free Report) .

AMN Healthcare has a long-term earnings growth rate of 3.2%. The company surpassed earnings estimates in the trailing four quarters, delivering a surprise of 15.7%, on average. It currently sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

AMN Healthcare has outperformed its industry in the past year. AMN has lost 12.8% against the industry’s 38.3% fall.

ShockWave Medical, sporting a Zacks Rank #1 at present, has an estimated growth rate of 33.1% for 2023. The company’s earnings surpassed estimates in all the trailing four quarters, the average beat being 180.1%.

ShockWave Medical has outperformed its industry in the past year. SWAV has gained 31.1% against the industry’s 32.6% fall over the past year.

McKesson has an estimated long-term growth rate of 9.9%. The company surpassed earnings estimates in the trailing three quarters and missed in one, delivering a surprise of 13%, on average. It currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

McKesson has outperformed its industry in the past year. MCK has gained 76% against the industry’s 14.5% fall.

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