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Products March 2, 2010
Walgreens Combines Pharmacy, Health and Wellness Solutions
March 2, 2010 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Walgreens has announced a strategic restructuring of its health care divisions to enable the company to offer integrated pharmacy, health and wellness solutions to employers, managed care organizations, pharmacy benefit managers, and government clients.
Reported by Rebecca Moore
Through more than 8,000 points of care, Walgreens “Pharmacy, Health and Wellness Solutions” will combine pharmacy services (including more than 7,100 retail drugstores, over 100 medical campus pharmacies, specialty and infusion pharmacy service, mail service pharmacy, and long-term care pharmacy), preventive health and wellness services (including retail and worksite health centers and immunization services, home medical equipment and supplies, respiratory services, and chronic care management), and pharmacy benefit administrative services (including integrated reporting and outcomes analysis).
The announcement said that in addition to providing a unified offering to payers in the health care marketplace, the restructuring of Walgreens’ health care divisions is expected to result in increased efficiencies across pharmacy, health and wellness operations, and provide savings in overhead as some overlapping functions are consolidated.
“Simply put, we are integrating Walgreens 70,000 health care providers, on the front lines of health care across the organization, with a unified sales team offering pharmacy, health and wellness solutions for the benefit of our payer clients and their patients,” said Walgreens President and CEO Greg Wasson, in the announcement.
Walgreens Health Services (WHS) Division’s specialty pharmacy, infusion pharmacy, mail service pharmacy, medical campus pharmacies, long-term care pharmacy and home care services will move to the company’s core Pharmacy Division, which is led by Executive Vice President Kermit R. Crawford.
Joe Terrion, currently Chief Client Officer responsible for the company’s Health and Wellness Division sales and client services organization, will now lead the new, combined “Pharmacy, Health and Wellness Solutions” sales and client services organization. He will continue to report to Hal F. Rosenbluth, Walgreens Senior Vice President and President of the Health and Wellness Division.
The WHS pharmacy benefit solutions group (Walgreens Health Initiatives, Inc.) will become the responsibility of Peter Hotz, Walgreens Vice President and President of Take Care Health Employer Solutions group, who also will continue to report to Rosenbluth.
The company also said that Stanley B. Blaylock, Walgreens Senior Vice President and President of Walgreens Health Services, has decided to leave the company in April after a transition period. Blaylock was a co-founder and CEO of Medmark Specialty Pharmacy Solutions before the company was acquired by Walgreens in 2006. He intends to pursue new entrepreneurial opportunities in the health care field.