In an exclusive video store tour, Rite Aid COO Ken Martindale walks Drug Store News editor Rob Eder and the DSN.TV cameras through its newest Wellness store, which features several important new elements and a vastly updated look throughout the store.

In part 2 of his exclusive interview with Walgreens executives, DSN editor Rob Eder talks to Walgreens president and CEO Greg Wasson about how the company’s recent acquisition of Alliance Boots helps accelerate the massive transformation that is already under way across its business and its stores.

In an exclusive video store tour, Duane Reade senior director of store concepts Mike Defazio walks Drug Store News editor Rob Eder and the DSN.TV cameras through the newest Duane Reade flagship store at 100 Broadway. In keeping with the Walgreens/Duane Reade flagship store strategy, the new store serves as a test lab for several new concepts aimed at driving new trips to the store.

Radio Health Journal's Reed Pence talks with DSN editor in chief Rob Eder; Walgreens president of pharmacy, health and wellness Kermit Crawford; Express Scripts senior director of public affairs Brian Henry; and former Walgreens pharmacy customer Virginia Greathouse about the causes and impact of the Walgreens-ESI dispute.

Recently, I had a brief conversation with a man I admire and respect very much, regarding the cover story of the Oct. 15 issue of DSN, “Building the ACO.”


As part of its exclusive Executive Viewpoint video series, DSN editor Rob Eder interviewed Walgreens president and CEO Greg Wasson and president of health and daily living solutions Joe Magnacca for DSN.TV.

Can you feel that? 
It’s the seismic shift that currently is occurring in health care in this country. And really, it’s just a tremor. The intense stuff isn’t expected to hit until 2014.


“It’s actually an illusion that those boxers are separate entities. The separate entities are just the way we choose to perceive them. The boxers, you, me — we’re all part of the same quantum field. Think of the two boxers as ocean waves or currents of air — two tornadoes, say. They appear to be two separate things, but they’re not. Tornadoes are just wind. The wind stirred up in different directions. The fact is nothing is separate. Everything is connected. The shapes we see exist only in our own consciousness.”

An overwrought U.S. healthcare system in desperate need of new solutions and new ways to cut the unsustainable cost spiral will demand a new, more engaged and more patient-centered role for community pharmacists.

FMI will be hosting a new retail-pharmacy-focused panel here on March 18 during the association's Retail Food & Pharmacy Health & Wellness expo to be moderated by DSN's editor-in-chief Rob Eder.

It's been a big week for Walgreens. Following its exit from Express Scripts' pharmacy network, the pharmacy retailer introduced a new program to help patients either keep their pharmacy home at Walgreens or to help transition them to a new pharmacy. Why help transition customers to the competition? Because it's the right thing to do. As Greg Wasson told DSN editor Rob Eder in an exclusive interview, "our No. 1 priority is to take care of patients."

This is going to be a big year for retail clinics because this is going to be the year that payers really begin to engage with retail-based care on a meaningful level.