Walgreens, VillageMD bring primary care clinics to Indiana
Walgreens and VillageMD’s ongoing collaboration is expanding to a new market. The two companies will be opening Village Medical at Walgreens clinics in four Indiana communities as they continue toward their goal of opening at least 600 of them in the next four years.
“According to the CDC, 6 in 10 Americans live with at least one chronic condition, with many needing multiple daily medications, emphasizing that the coordinated care model of Village Medical at Walgreens is now more important than ever,” said Jamie Vortherms, vice president of healthcare services at Walgreens. “We’re excited to open these Village Medical at Walgreens locations in Northern Indiana, bringing convenient access to personalized, high quality and coordinated care to more people across the country.”
The companies said there would be Village Medical at Walgreens locations opening in Merrillville, Griffith, Portage and South bend this year. The locations are part of Walgreens’ accelerated $1 billion investment in VillageMD to open the co-located clinics at a faster pace. In December, the companies sought to open 40 clinics in Texas, Florida and Arizona by the end of the summer — a goal that executives said had been exceeded by early July.
[Read more: Walgreens, VillageMD bringing 29 clinics to Texas this year]
The clinics make Walgreens the only national drug chain with full-service primary care clinics at its stores on a large scale, and they are aimed at helping improve outcomes and lower the cost of care while offering a coordinated care delivery model.
“We’re excited to open new Village Medical at Walgreens locations in Northern Indiana. Our teams are led by experienced primary care physicians who deliver quality, coordinated care with the Walgreens pharmacy team,” said Dr. Brent Asplin, president of Village Medical. “As a result, we help deliver improved health outcomes and affordable care for more patients in Northern Indiana so they can enjoy being healthy and active members of their community.”
In early July, Walgreens executives made clear that partnerships like the one with VillageMD would play a central role in its efforts to become a healthcare destination.
“VillageMD is a great partnership for us in the pharmacy, because we can do a collaborative care model for chronic patients with VillageMD and it kind of breaks down a bunch of the barriers that you might have in that kind of relationship,” Walgreens president John Standley told analysts on a conference call discussing Walgreens Boots Alliances third-quarter earnings on July 1. “And there is definitely a script uplift in the store from the relationship that's going develop over time as we have opportunities to continue to advance the model, as we roll out additional [co-locations] across the chain here.”
Other efforts from the retailer include its investment in high-volume pharmacy automation company iA and a delivery and COVID-19 scheduling partnership with Uber, among several others.
“As I analyze the company and see where they are, this team has done some tremendous work in building partnerships,” WBA CEO Rosalind Brewer said on the July 1 call. “Those partnerships will be key to us going forward.