Believing in the mission: A retail healthcare transformation

Rite Aid is a company of believers. From the leadership team in Camp Hill, Pa., to the nearly 90,000 associates it has in the field and in its stores, they believe in themselves and have built a culture focused on finding and implementing the next big idea, and creating important differentiation from their competitors.

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They believe they can help the communities they serve. Not only is Rite Aid constantly sending associates into their neighborhoods to share the full capabilities of Rite Aid’s pharmacy through its Wellness Ambassadors and partnerships such as the Rite Aid Health Alliance, but the company is also connecting philanthropically through important charitable initiatives like The Rite Aid Foundation, KidCents, and Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals.



And they believe in their future. That future is largely premised upon Rite Aid becoming a retail healthcare company, a journey in which Rite Aid is well on its way. The company has significantly bolstered its ability to deliver a broader scope of healthcare offerings with the strategic acquisitions of Health Dialog, RediClinic and, most recently, its acquisition of EnvisionRx.



“We all believe that, in five to 10 years, the retail pharmacy business is not going to look like it does today,” Ken Martindale, Rite Aid president and COO, told Drug Store News. “To be profitable, we will need to do more than simply filling prescriptions.”



“Our ultimate goal is to become more of a healthcare services retailer,” Martindale said. “So you’re going to see us continue to become a bigger player in healthcare delivery by introducing products and services to support that goal. And the front end is going to be more closely aligned with that objective as well.”



Last year, Rite Aid acquired Health Dialog, which firmly placed the company into the disease management and coaching space. Within days of that announcement, Rite Aid bought RediClinic.



Beyond increased disease management capabilities, Health Dialog provides Rite Aid with a strong population health management tool. “It’s beneficial for us to be able to analyze larger databases of the population as we continue to dive deeper into health care,” he said. “RediClinic is also a huge opportunity for us to play a key role in acute care. And we think there are some additional opportunities for RediClinic beyond acute care.”



Adding the PBM EnvisionRx gives Rite Aid the opportunity to create an integrated healthcare offering throughout an expanded platform that includes the retail, mail and specialty channels. It also gives Rite Aid a stronger presence in some of health care’s fastest-growing segments, including the Medicare Part D insurance market.



Rite Aid is also working to create a differentiated healthcare experience in its stores. More than 38% of its stores now feature some version of its ever-evolving Wellness concept (1,741), and more than half of those are the next generation of the Wellness store format. The Wellness stores reinforce Rite Aid’s position as a healthcare destination and feature expanded wellness product and service offerings, including organic and/or gluten-free foods; all-natural personal and home care products; fitness and workout equipment; and, a major differentiator, the Wellness Ambassador, who works closely with Rite Aid pharmacists to provide customers with access to information about over-the-counter medications, vitamins and supplements, as well as Rite Aid’s other programs and services.



And in about 55 stores, Rite Aid has added more services and offerings in the beauty category, with in-store beauty advisors to help customers explore a vastly expanded assortment of mass and prestige brands.



In a handful of stores, Rite Aid is testing the addition of a vitamin advisor in its vitamin/ supplement departments. These advisors are specially trained to support suggestive selling, where appropriate, while creating an exceptional customer experience.



Rite Aid will continue to evaluate the impact of these two unique services as the company looks to exceed the expectations of the customer through innovative merchandising solutions and expanded healthcare offerings.



“I think our team has done a really good job of understanding that innovation isn’t an exact science,” Martindale said. “If you don’t step up to the plate and take a couple swings, you’ll never hit the ball. If we try it a couple times and it doesn’t work, that’s not a bad thing. It just means that we need to take those key learnings and innovate differently.”



Another area in which the company has used healthcare to differentiate itself has been through its wellness+ loyalty program — which company leaders frequently cite as a major lynchpin of its massive turnaround effort over the last few years.

        

Growth of that program stands to benefit greatly from its inclusion in the recently introduced loyalty coalition program Plenti. As a founding member — and the only drug store chain in the group — Plenti creates an incentive for members, who may not already be Rite Aid customers, to shop at Rite Aid and fill prescriptions there, which remains the fastest way to earn wellness+ points.



It all comes back to positioning Rite Aid as the healthcare retailer of choice. “Health care is changing and our role in health care is changing,” Martindale said. “While we may not have a perfectly clear picture of what it will look like in the future, we do know we can play a much bigger role.”



In the same spirit, many of the cutting-edge technologies that make Rite Aid stand out, like its HealthSpot doctor consultation kiosks, for example, are likely to be considered routine in the years to come. “How do we use electronic healthcare records and how is the consumer going to want us to use them?” Martindale asked. “These are the kinds of questions we’re thinking about. We don’t know exactly what it’s going to look like, but we’re going to push hard to get the answer. And the focus we’ve had on innovation these past few years will make it easier for us to do that.”



It’s a mission in which the entire Rite Aid team believes — to transform from yesterday’s corner drug store into tomorrow’s retail healthcare company.