Meet Odiri Igbeyi. He is the Owner and Pharmacist at Connected Health Pharmacy located at 3907 Grandview Drive in Simpsonville. Since the beginning of November, Connected Health Pharmacy has been offering free Glucometer starter kits to those with diabetes to support National Diabetes Awareness month (November), in addition to frequent free onsite and offsite wellness classes. Connected Health Pharmacy offers free delivery of medicine and will administer immunization services on and offsite, including the flu shot, within 15-20 mile radius from their office (call to verify). They carry a wide range of natural and organic products. He and his wife, Sophia, have been married for 11 years and they have two daughters and one son.
The Faces of The Golden Strip would like to thank Odiri Igbeyi for making time in his busy schedule to foster awareness of the many benefits that Connected Health Pharmacy can offer to the Golden Strip community in regards to proactive self-care.
Q: What inspired you or led you to your current career?
A: Basically growing up, I came from a family where my Dad was very instrumental in decisions and we looked at education as a way out. Making sure that we had a chance at making it at being successful. So we had a few professions that we had to pick from. It was either doctor, lawyer, engineer, or scientist. So I picked one of the few professions and, well actually, my Dad picked. He said, “Okay, you’re going to be a doctor.” So I said, Okay. I’ll be a doctor.” I went to med school. I didn’t really like it that much. After my second year I decided to make a detour. What made me make that detour was my grandma who was really into herbs. When we were sick she would go to the garden at the back and pick different things and come and make drinks that tasted terrible. After a while, I realized that I was interested in experimenting and making stuff, and I was good with my hands. Also, I was called to serve folks. I figured out by picking the pharmacy profession that I could do both. You know, I could help people and I could make stuff. So that’s why I picked the Pharmacy profession.
Q: How long have you been in this profession?
A: I’ve been in and out for over 20 years now. When I say in and out, I have kind of dabbled into multiple professions. I just attribute that to me being a lifelong learner. I’ve never left the profession even while I practiced as an executive in the IT industry. This is the third pharmacy I have opened and owned. I’ve also worked in several consulting capacities with other healthcare institutions to help set up their practices or audit the practice. After going full circle, I decided that I was going to jump with both legs and bring all the knowledge and experience that I’ve gathered over the years into Connected Health Pharmacy.
Q: How long has Connected Health Pharmacy been in business?
A: We’ve been in business about a year and six months.
Q: What do you enjoy most about what you do?
A: The people. I enjoy meeting new people and sharing people’s experiences ,and I enjoy sharing my own experiences with people. I enjoy seeing how the information that we share can make a real difference in people’s lives.
Q: What’s the most challenging thing you’ve experienced in your business?
A: Dealing with a very complicated healthcare system that’s not really transparent in so many ways. I would say, the most challenging thing I have faced is with the PBM’s (Pharmacy Benefit Management) and the insurance companies. Some of the practices I just don’t understand why they exist, or why they do business in a certain way.
Q: What one sentence would you like people to use in describing the way you do business?
A: You might just pull up Google reviews and see what patients shared. I think what I want to hear is these guys at Connected Health Pharmacy do really, really care and take the time to connect with their patients.
Q: What is your favorite restaurant in the Golden Strip, and what do you love there?
A: I like Bobby’s BBQ. He is awesome. He is one person that I would recommend that you definitely go see. They have the best BBQ in the Golden Strip.
Q: How long have you lived or worked in the Golden Strip area?
A: Just to give you a timeline, about 15 years ago, I moved to the States. I had my Masters from Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. My first step in the sunny, beautiful State of South Carolina was courtesy of BMW who brought me down here to work on a project. I always like to tell the story about coming down and having my first winter here compared to Michigan. One day we had about three inches of snow and the plant was shut down. This is when I was in the apartment complex. I called my wife Sophia and said, “Hey, I’m not going to work today, we’re just shoveling snow” and she asked, “Oh, how many inches did you get…6, 7, 8 ? So I said, “We got three inches, honey.” Then I said, “That’s it! We’re coming down!” That’s the story of how we made the transition to South Carolina. Of course, it was because of the weather and the people.
Q: Who is the most interesting person you’ve met here in the Golden Strip area ?
A: Everybody’s got a story to tell. If you just can just be silent and listen you’ll get a fantastic story about people’s challenges, people’s experiences, and the stuff that they’re doing that’s making a real difference. That’s one thing that really sets us apart. That’s why even in the name, here at Connected Health, we’re all about establishing connections with people. I wouldn’t be doing everyone justice if I just called one person out because I’ve met a lot of interesting people….EVERYONE that walks through our door.
Q: If you could travel anywhere in the world right now, where would it be? And why?
A: That’s a tough one for me because there’s a lot of places I’ve been to that I’d like to revisit. I worked for quite a bit in Dubai and I have had one of the best experiences in Dubai. I would like to visit the Caribbean Islands more. Anywhere there is a beach and nice, clean air.
Q: What is your favorite movie?
A: I like lots of movies. I’m really into Sci-Fi and all the Super-Hero movies.
Q: What advice would you give a crowd of people?
A: People don’t remember a lot about what folks said or didn’t say, but people will always remember how you made them feel. That’s pretty much what my entire 40 years of living has taught me. No human being is an island. You can’t exist in a vacuum. The whole essence of our being is we all want to leave this world a better place than we met it. We have to take time to reconnect with that thing that binds us all together, and that’s our humanity. We all need to take time to connect with ourselves, take time to connect with our community, take time to connect with our loved ones. That’s what the whole world is about. You know, it’s a real way you can make a difference.
Q: What is your favorite type of music or 3 bands you would like to see (dead or alive)?
A: My music style is very eclectic and diverse. I like John Legend, John Mayer, Black Eyed Peas, 2 Faced, Brad Paisley, and Bach.
Q: Where do you see yourself in 5 or 10 years?
A: Five to ten years, I see many more Connected Health Pharmacies. I see the movement catching, gaining momentum; because I see every day that Connected Health Pharmacy is more than just a pharmacy. It’s a mission, it’s a movement. It’s a movement that’s come about for the need to really make a difference in our community, and to motivate other people to do the same. You’re never too small to make a difference. A saying that my Dad always used to say, “If you think you’re too small to make a difference, you haven’t spent the night with a mosquito.” So, whatever you are, whatever you’re doing, you know, whatever your profession is, do it with a purpose. We have to stop existing and start living.
Q: What significant changes have you seen take place in your profession throughout the years in pharmacy and healthcare?
A: I’ve seen healthcare become more impersonal and more transaction based driven by insurance and profits. I’ve heard a lot of talk about over the years at the National level and the Federal level, but not a lot of action has happened. That was one of the frustrations and is part of what motivated me to step in and do whatever I could on a on a minor level.
Q: What do you see as the coming trends in the Pharmaceutical field?
Service . We’re definitely gravitating more towards service base. For the longest time, due to the way insurance has been structured, a pharmacist couldn’t bill for any kind of service or anything without dispensing a drug. So you realize that you have to sell a product because that’s the only way you get paid. You know, and with that we sacrifice a lot because every pharmacist is a warehouse of information. And the pharmacist is the most accessible member of your healthcare team. Your doctor? You see them once every quarter, once a year, you have to book an appointment to see them. You know, same thing with your nurse, and now, even your even your chiropractor! Any of those you book an appointment. They don’t just accept walk ins freely, but you have a doctor right here behind the counter that you can walk straight up to and ask any help on health related information, the data, and provide solid information to keep your information private because it’s protected by HIPAA like just like a doctor’s and all that and also make recommendations. But not until the MMA, Medicare Modernization Act, things like MTM medication therapy management- we couldn’t bill for it so it just gravitated towards pharmacists being pill dispensers. You just meet your numbers by doing as much billing as you can because that’s the only way you get paid. But now with it shifting more towards a service based model, we can finally do things that are more fulfilling. I personally know a lot of pharmacists that didn’t like the fact that they were just like robots and counting pills. So that’s one trend that’s happening right now that I’m very happy about. People are embracing it, and the health system is opening up towards providing more service based care because with that, the patient benefits by getting more information to use to make informed decisions. That’s what we strive to do here all the time at Connected Health.
Q: Do you see a trend in more people choosing a holistic approach to their healthcare?
A: Yes, especially with the opioid epidemic and skyrocketing of prescription medications. People are now thinking outside of the box and somewhat going back to their roots and thinking more holistic. That is one area that really made me consider pharmacy because I was genuinely interested in plants. I did two years of Pharmacognitiveness which is the study of medicinal plants. I truly believe that the first Pharmacists were Herbalists. They used carbon based sources initially like plants or marine based sources. Today most drugs are mass produced and made from synthetic sources; so people are looking at natural and alternative medicines before they go towards more synthetic medicines that have higher risks of complications. One of the key reasons why we formed Connected Health Pharmacy was to really look at a patient’s perspective and figure out how we can come up with a care plan that takes into account everything. Hence the word holistic. It takes into account your diet and lifestyle, complementary medications, and supplements that can help bring about the best results for the patient. We don’t rule out any one of them. We will we bring everything together around the patient to give them the best service. We check for interactions because there are some medications and supplements that would interact with your regular prescription. There are also some supplements and natural medicines that you take that can be even more toxic than synthetic conventional medicine, and individuals can’t rely on Google or the Internet to make those decisions. They need to go to a professional certified source that would help them make the right decision, and that’s what we are. We are literally a pharmacopoeia of information. I can show you tons of books and our systems of standard practices that we use every day to help educate our patients on the safe use of natural and alternative complementary medicines. One of the big topics now is CBD and hemp oil ever since it was legalized on a national level last year. We have properly educated ourselves about it and we have been educating the community on the safe use of CBD and hemp oil by providing complimentary service for those that are looking to explore it. We’re giving free classes at all the Senior Centers in the Golden Strip to educate our seniors on what hemp oil or CBD is, and to address the legal perspective. Is it legal? What should they look for in a quality product? How would it impact their lifestyle and medications? What are the benefits? We’ve given those classes not once but several times at the Simpsonville Senior Center, the Mauldin Senior Center , and Fountain Inn Senior Center. They’ve been very happy with information provided and they keep inviting us back. That’s definitely a trend for consumers. They are trending back towards more natural sources for their health.
Q: Your website mentions Compounding. Can you explain what that means?
A: Compounding is is a branch of pharmaceutical sciences that deals with custom manufacturing of drugs by a certified compound pharmacy that can formulate medication uniquely for a patient. It could be for a wide array of reasons. Typically for infants, they don’t have ready off the shelf products, so we help compound products for infants that would be more in line with what the dose should be. For the folks that have allergies to gluten dyes we will compound custom medications that they would not be allergic to. Also for ladies wanting hormonal substitutes that are not synthetic, we will compound by identical hormones to make substitute hormones for them when their body is not making enough of them.
Q: What 3 words or phrases come to mind when you think of the word HOME?
A: Home for me is where your heart is. I know people say it all the time, but home for me is family. I categorize family not as just my immediate family; but family is my community. Wherever you connect to feel safe, loved and cared for…that’s Home!
Q: Do you have a charity or organization that you are passionate about? Do you do any volunteer work for it?
A: UNGKE. That’s the acronym for United Network for Global Knowledge Exchange. It is a global nonprofit. When I think about community, I think about not just my immediate community in the Golden Strip, but I think about the bigger community that I’ve had the privilege to have been exposed to and places I’ve lived and worked for a bit. Places like back at home in Nigeria, London, Germany and United Arab Emirates. I think about the community that is beyond my immediate community and what we do here, is not in isolation and I think about how to connect both. UNGKE brings that home for me. We engage with Doctors Without Borders and in mission trips to West Africa and South Africa. This year, May 14, we actually hosted about 13 International Delegates here in Greenville that were UNGKE. They’re all business owners, they’re all pharmacists, and we hosted them for two weeks here in the Upstate. They visited University of South Carolina in Columbia, and they visited Presbyterian College of Pharmacy in Clinton. They also visited different local areas and downtown. The purpose of that visit was for them to come and experience culture here in the Upstate and also to learn the best practices to take back to their individual countries and use that to do some good. That’s the one non-profit that I’m so passionate about because I think it’s helping to build a bigger global community where people are embracing a lot of really good ideas and ideals that we have here. When I’m not working at the pharmacy or elsewhere, I’m spending my time trying to grow that mission.
Q: What do you like to do in your spare time?
A: Every spare moment I have, I try to spend it with my family. I spend it with my son at his basketball games and with my daughters at the movies. I’m your typical family, man. I always give people the acronym GFL. “G” standing for God because I’m a man of faith and it shapes my perspective on life and everything I do. “F” is for family, of course my immediate family first and then my community is my family; and “L” is for legacy. Like I said, we all have to leave this world better than we met it.
Q: What is something on your bucket list?
A: I want to die empty. What I mean by that is I don’t want to be someone that had the opportunity to do something and I didn’t do it because I was scared. I always try and pursue every creative idea that I feel would be beneficial to some conclusion. I’m always going to create one more thing. For me that satisfaction is not from the achievement. The satisfaction I get comes from the process. God puts this idea in my mind and in my mind, and I’ve already laid out all the steps and processes that I need to get to the end. I enjoy the process of going through the process. Once I get to that end, there’s another idea that comes up and then I start living through that and ask myself what else can I do to make a difference?
Q: Who else would you like to see nominated as a Face of the Golden Strip?
A: Dr. William Long of Upstate Podiatry Group. He is a Veteran of the United States Coast Guard and served in the Homeland Security Office Department in response to 9/11. He is one of the premier faces of the Golden Strip. Everybody loves him. His patients love him and he’s doing really good work. He leaves a lasting impression to say the least.
