If you weren’t at the Colorado Convention Center last week, this is your full debrief. Because what happened at McKesson ideaShare 2026 from June 18 to 21 is a direct preview of what the most successful independent pharmacies in the country will look like in five years.
If one theme defined ideaShare 2026, it was the shift from asking whether AI and automation belong in independent pharmacies to figuring out how to implement them effectively. Several clear themes emerged across the sessions and conversations: the maturation of artificial intelligence and automation as practical pharmacy tools, a growing urgency around independent pharmacy advocacy, an expanded vision of what community pharmacies can offer patients, and a commitment to health equity in under-resourced communities.
The AI session that generated the most practical takeaways came from two pharmacist-owners who built their automation stories from scratch, not from a corporate playbook.
Greg Hamby, owner of King’s Pharmacy in Beaumont, Texas, and Michael Deninger, chief technology officer of Towncrest Pharmacies, described automation journeys that began with necessity and evolved into competitive advantage. For Hamby, hitting a growth ceiling in prescription volume made manual workflows unsustainable. For Deninger, early skepticism gave way to measurable wins, including completing an insurance claims reconciliation task in roughly two hours that had previously required colleagues tens of hours to complete manually.
Two hours versus tens of hours, on a single recurring task. That is the kind of before-and-after that makes the AI investment argument concrete for pharmacy owners who are still in the evaluation phase. The Pilot Purgatory newsletter from several issues ago documented that only 8.3% of healthcare enterprises have AI operating in production. The Hamby and Deninger session described exactly how two independent owners broke out of that 91.7%.
The Trailblazer Award Winner Deserves More Attention Than She Got
Shahida Choudhry, PharmD, owner of Palms Pharmacy in Tampa, Florida, received the inaugural McKesson Trailblazer Award for redefining what is possible in independent pharmacy through innovative care delivery and national leadership. In an interview with Pharmacy Times, she described how identifying gaps in primary care, dermatology, and weight-loss services led her to build an integrated practice model, including a collaborative primary care clinic and cash-based telehealth consultation services, alongside her pharmacy.
Her framing of how she built this is worth quoting directly: “When I saw gaps in care, I wanted to bring the solutions to my patients. In our area, there is a shortage of primary care providers, so I reached out to certain providers that I knew would work well together, and we built the Primary Care of Wesley Chapel. We’ve been working together for the last two years, and a lot of our patients now have a home primary care practice instead of waiting a year to get an appointment with a primary care physician. Now they’re only waiting a couple of days to weeks.”
This is the Zone 3 entrepreneurial pharmacist model this newsletter has been documenting for months, now with a face, a name, and a national award attached. Choudhry didn’t ask for permission to build an integrated care model. She identified a primary care shortage, found providers willing to collaborate, and built the practice her patients needed. The Trailblazer Award signals that the profession is actively celebrating pharmacists who build differently rather than tolerating them as outliers.
Her path into advocacy followed a similar pattern. She described being disconnected from advocacy entirely until one trip to the Capitol changed everything: “I met with senators and legislators. I did not know how much of an impact our voices as pharmacists make. After that, I think the tides turned for me, and now I’m a big advocate for pharmacy.” She added: “A lot of pharmacy owners do not reach out and voice their opinion about all of the issues that we have. We have so many issues, but our voices do matter.”
The Pharmacy of the Year Winner Told an Equally Powerful Story
Health Mart presented the 2026 Health Mart Pharmacy of the Year award to Mace’s Pharmacy of Barbour County, West Virginia. Owners Rich Mace, PharmD, Kathy Mace and their team have served the healthcare needs of Barbour County and the surrounding community for nearly 25 years, growing alongside the families they serve while providing personalized care, expanding clinical services, and remaining deeply invested in the well-being of their community.
“Our approach to care is rooted in service. We believe we have been placed in our community for a purpose, to care for patients, show up in times of need and serve others,” the Mace team said.
The finalists included pharmacies from Florida. A rural pharmacy in West Virginia won the popular vote. That outcome matters as a signal from the profession about what it values. Mace’s didn’t win because it had the most sophisticated technology stack or the highest clinical service revenue. It won because it has served one community for 25 years with consistency, clinical commitment, and genuine care. The profession is not just surviving in underserved communities. At its best, it is thriving there in ways that no chain closure or mail-order platform can replicate.
The Infrastructure Story Underneath Everything Else
One operational development at ideaShare deserves specific attention from pharmacy owners thinking about how to restructure their day around clinical work rather than dispensing volume.
Crystal Lennartz, PharmD, MBA, president of Health Mart and Health Mart Atlas, grounded the event’s broader ambitions in current recognition and near-term tools. McKesson’s Central Fill as a Service offering allows independent pharmacies to offload high-volume dispensing to a McKesson-operated facility and redirect pharmacist time toward clinical services and direct patient care. That is not a future vision described from a stage. It is a live product available to independents right now, and it is one of the clearest operational levers available for a pharmacy owner who wants to restructure their day around clinical work rather than prescription volume.
This connects directly to the advanced pharmacy technician investment framework this newsletter covered several issues ago. Whether the pharmacist frees clinical time by delegating to credentialed technicians under a career ladder model, by leveraging central fill for high-volume dispensing, or by combining both, the underlying strategic logic is identical. Protect pharmacist time for the clinical and relationship work that generates value, delegate or automate what doesn’t require a PharmD, and measure the resulting clinical capacity expansion.
The Advocacy Infrastructure Getting Stronger
Nancy Lyons, BSPharm, MBA, CDCES, vice president and chief pharmacy officer at Health Mart, framed advocacy not as an abstract political exercise but as a natural extension of pharmacists’ education skills. “It’s really just educating,” she told Pharmacy Times. “It’s really about explaining to those legislators the impact that it has.” McKesson Amplify, now in its second year, has matured from a funding mechanism into what Lyons described as a movement, with associations using the resources to bring pharmacists before policy decision-makers, drive membership growth, and pursue state-level legislative priorities.
The timing is directly relevant. The Main Street Pharmacy Access Act cleared the House Ways and Means Committee in May, covered in a prior issue of this newsletter. The Tennessee FAIR Rx Act was signed into law the same week ideaShare was announced. The federal midterms are approaching. Independent pharmacy advocacy is producing legislative wins, and McKesson is investing specifically in the infrastructure that makes those wins more likely.
McKesson is continuing its commitment to supporting state pharmacy associations and their advocacy efforts through dedicated funding via McKesson Amplify. Applications for 2027 McKesson Amplify funding are now open, and eligible state pharmacy associations are encouraged to apply.
The Health Equity Vision Being Built Right Now
Niki Shah, MHSA, MBA, CCHW, vice president of Health Impact and Innovation at McKesson, detailed multiple interconnected initiatives at ideaShare: Project Oasis, building new pharmacy infrastructure in pharmacy deserts, with a next location planned for Syracuse, New York; a new AI-enabled diabetic retinopathy screening pilot, developed in partnership with the American Pharmacists Association Foundation and the American Academy of Ophthalmology; and a fourth cohort of the Community Health Worker scholarship program, which has funded 120 technician training scholarships since 2023 and is opening 30 more through July 2026.
The AI-enabled retinopathy screening pilot is worth specific attention. It connects directly to the MASLD and diabetes coverage in prior issues of this newsletter: the patients at highest risk for undiagnosed diabetic retinopathy are the same patients showing up at independent pharmacy counters for diabetes medication refills. An AI screening tool that a pharmacy technician can administer during a dispensing visit, paired with pharmacist interpretation and prescriber communication, is exactly the kind of clinical expansion that generates documented outcomes without requiring a separately scheduled specialist appointment.
The Going the Distance Award: A Story Worth Knowing
The Going the Distance Award was presented to CHCC Outpatient Pharmacy, located in Saipan, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The pharmacy was honored for expanding access to care and maintaining uninterrupted service despite geographic isolation, severe weather, and supply chain challenges, reinforcing its role as a dependable healthcare resource.
A pharmacy in Saipan winning a national recognition at the industry’s largest independent pharmacy conference is a reminder of the full geographic scope of what independent pharmacy serves. The supply chain fragility coverage from earlier this year described how drug shortages hit community pharmacies first. CHCC Outpatient Pharmacy operated through those challenges in conditions more extreme than most pharmacists will ever encounter. That kind of institutional resilience deserves recognition alongside every clinical service launch and AI implementation story.
Your Action This Week
McKesson ideaShare 2026 brought the independent pharmacy community together for four days of education, networking, and strategic programming, with Pharmacy Times on the ground throughout the conference covering Pharma Talk sessions, conducting video interviews, and reporting from the exhibit floor.
Full session coverage, including the AI and automation Pharma Talk session with Hamby and Deninger, interviews with Choudhry, Lennartz, and Lyons, and the Pharmacy of the Year finalist profiles, is available at pharmacytimes.com/conference/ideashare.
Find the AI automation session and watch the Hamby and Deninger conversation in full. What they describe is replicable at almost any practice size. The insurance reconciliation workflow that went from tens of hours to two hours is not a large-system innovation. It is a result two independent pharmacy operators achieved with tools available to any Health Mart or Health Mart Atlas member.
The pharmacists who walk away from that session with one concrete automation trial to run in the next 30 days are the ones building toward the next Trailblazer conversation.
Mark your calendar: McKesson ideaShare 2027 runs June 24 to 27 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.
Sources: McKesson Corporation Press Release / BusinessWire (McKesson ideaShare 2026 Fuels Momentum for Independent Pharmacies, June 23, 2026), McKesson Stories and Insights (McKesson ideaShare 2026: AI, Advocacy and Community Care Center Stage), Pharmacy Times (McKesson ideaShare 2026: Recapping Key Insights from Denver; McKesson ideaShare 2026 Brings AI, Advocacy, and a Packed Expo Floor to Denver; McKesson ideaShare 2026: Why Pharmacist Advocacy Matters, According to Trailblazer Award Winner Shahida Choudhry), IPC (Let’s Recap McKesson ideaShare 2026 in Denver), Morningstar / BusinessWire (McKesson ideaShare 2026 Fuels Momentum for Independent Pharmacies), Chain Drug Review (McKesson ideaShare 2026 Fuels Momentum for Independent Pharmacies)
