In this Issue

Shopko Pharmacy had an excellent 2016, led by total prescription growth and increased days of supply, with continued growth in 90-day fills as a percent of prescription fills. “A key driver of our growth was our passion for providing personalized service in all of our pharmacies, with short wait times, expert medication advice and chronic disease counseling,” Darren Singer, Shopko’s SVP, health and wellness, told Drug Store News.

Walgreens Boots Alliance in the past year has implemented “a new way of thinking” across the upper echelons of the company. “We’re focused on working in partnership to provide a better, more efficient and more effective approach [to health care] within the United States,” Stefano Pessina, executive vice chairman and CEO, Walgreens Boots Alliance, told shareholders earlier in the year.

If you could pick only one headline regarding CVS Health over the past year, the conversion of all 1,669 pharmacies and 79 clinics acquired from Target in 2015 to CVS Pharmacy locations would be a good one. To be sure, those efforts are paying off. In the former Target pharmacy locations, script counts are up, CVS Health president and CEO Larry Merlo told analysts during a February earnings call.

Albertsons is proving that the sum can indeed be greater than the parts. Following the 2015 merger of Albertsons and Safeway — both of which had long and distinguished records of providing health-and-wellness services — the combined company is continuing that tradition. It has expanded several of its pharmacy- and health-related offerings as it shares best practices across the company and introduces new programs companywide.

A pioneer in supermarket pharmacy retailing, H-E-B has been operating in-store pharmacies since the 1950s, when it opened its first full-scale supermarkets, some 50 years after founder Florence Butt opened the C.C. Butt Grocery Store in Kerrville, Texas, with a $60 initial investment. But over the past decade, the Texas-based supermarket and pharmacy powerhouse also has been at the forefront of the movement among supermarket pharmacy operators to expand their stores’ health-and-wellness outreach beyond the pharmacy and into the food aisles.

Ahold Delhaize entered 2017 as a newly combined global retail powerhouse that is pursuing a range of initiatives to advance pharmacy and health-and-wellness strategies in the United States. The merger of the European-based Ahold and Delhaize formed Ahold Delhaize last July, producing a giant entity with 6,500 stores in 11 countries.

Genoa CEO John Figueroa has been in the business for 26 years, but he told Drug Store News that the pharmacy chain’s business model is “the most exciting model I’ve ever been a part of.” Genoa’s integrated care model — which centers on pharmacies on-site at community mental health centers — has him excited for several reasons, among them the company’s growth in the past year and the interest that payers have begun to show in the adherence boost exhibited by patients served by Genoa pharmacies.

How to engage patients waiting to be seen by a doctor at a doctor’s office or hospital has been an age-old problem. Ez WaitingRoom provides a clear-cut answer. DSN spoke with CEO Ed Young about his vision to forever change this experience, and how drug store retailers fit into the equation.

DSN: Please describe ez WaitingRoom — what is it and how does it work?