An early health/wellness adopter, Ukrop’s will be a ‘Giant’ for Ahold

RICHMOND, Va. —As this issue went to press, it seemed Ahold had emerged as the winner in its bid to add the 72-year-old Ukrop’s supermarket chain to its Giant-Carlisle division.

Apart from the stores and pharmacy files themselves, of course, Ahold inherits a variety of health-and-wellness programs that Ukrop’s had developed for its customers.

One area in which Ukrop’s has made a name for itself is in immunizations. The stores offer vaccinations for influenza and pneumococcal disease, and prides itself on being one of the first pharmacy operators in the country to offer vaccinations. It also offers travel vaccinations for such diseases as Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, yellow fever, Japanese encephalitis and rabies—diseases that are uncommon in the United States but are widespread throughout much of the world, particularly in developing countries. The chain offers travel vaccinations in a small number of its stores, but the presence of the service provides a convenience to customers. The program has earned the praise of pharmacy leaders.

In October 2009, American Pharmacists Association CEO Tom Menighan reviewed the chain’s vaccination program on a store tour with Ukrop’s director of pharmacy and health services John Beckner. In a blog entry on the APhA’s Web site, Menighan remarked, “While each location had a generally similar feel, the pharmacists and technicians were proud of their unique services, their teamwork and perhaps most importantly, their connection with their patients.”

The travel vaccination program will soon be expanded to other stores via a “hub and spoke” model. Another area Menighan praised was the chain’s medication therapy management program.

Ukrop’s has branched out into retail clinics as well. In May 2008, it opened a clinic in its Salem Church store in Fredericksburg, Va., through a collaboration with the Pratt Medical Center. The clinic, staffed by a nurse practitioner, was the first for Ukrop’s and the sixth for Pratt.

Diabetes also has a position of high importance at Ukrop’s. According to the Virginia Diabetes Council, nearly 2 million people in the state are diagnosed as diabetic or pre-diabetic. The state’s government-run Virginia Diabetes Prevention and Control Project ranks the condition as the sixth leading cause of death among state residents.

Ukrop’s began offering diabetes education classes early in the decade on such subjects as blood-glucose monitoring, nutrition, exercise and other topics to obtain certification from the American Diabetes Association. While it doesn’t offer the classes anymore, it has retained its focus on the disease, offering screenings for blood sugar and blood pressure, and pharmacists who double as certified diabetes educators can offer counseling to patients. Meanwhile, the pharmacists serve as liaisons with in-store dieticians who can provide additional education and support.

“Certainly, a lot of it is on the patient to do what they can themselves, and if we can provide them with the tools or roadmap to negotiate the store with respect to the wellness services that are offered, then we feel like we’ve done our job,” Beckner said.