Regional Rx Report

SANFORD, N.C. Kerr Drug officials are calling the newest drug store and Community Healthcare Center opened in mid-November a hybrid. At 16,000 square feet, the new store, located about 35 miles southwest of Kerr’s headquarters, marks the expansion to a second location of the Kerr Community Healthcare Center, which debuted two years ago in Lenoir, N.C. Half of the store’s interior is devoted to expanded clinical pharmacy services, with separate offices for private one-on-one patient services, intervention and education performed by such health professionals as physician’s assistants, weight-loss/nutritionists specialists and respiratory therapists.—

Kerr has allocated areas throughout the new center to cardiac and lung health, women’s care, advanced skin and foot care, breastfeeding support and other specialty departments. A complete line of health screenings also will be available, including cholesterol, bone density, artery disease, glucose and respiratory.

The new hybrid also features a large-scale “Healthy Living” durable medical equipment section for patients needing walkers, hospital beds, mobility and safety equipment, and home healthcare items.

In a fresh approach to its market strategy, Kerr has combined that broad patient care concept with its prototype drug store under one roof, and added a Kerr Café that sells Seattle’s Best coffee, snacks and other items in a sit-down environment that can be entered either from within the drug store or from outside.

“The profession of pharmacy has to have a much bigger stake in the management of chronic disease. And how we get there has to be well thought out,” said Tony Civello, Kerr’s president and chief executive officer. He called the new hybrid store “another step to attracting patients with chronic disease.”

The store requires a high level of staffing. Among its 50 to 60 employees: a clinical pharmacy coordinator, a pharmacy resident, a large complement of staff pharmacists and technicians and a specialist in durable medical equipment to help with homehealth care supplies and billing for Medicare Part B and private insurance.