What seamless patient care really means

Alexandra Broadus, Senior Director, Specialty Health Solutions

Whether ourselves or a loved one, we all know someone who has been through a challenging health journey. It can sometimes feel like a full-time job navigating our complex healthcare system for ourselves or those we love. Even people with a healthcare background often find the system confusing and frustrating. That’s why we at Walgreens are committed to reinventing what the patient experience looks like in our communities by:

• Providing seamless patient care patients can rely on and trust
• Delivering holistic, coordinated and clearly communicated care at every step of the healthcare journey
• Working with our partners to make it easier for patients to achieve their treatment goals

Robust physical and digital presence for increased localized care

At Walgreens, patients can walk into any one of our 300+ URAC-accredited, community-based specialty pharmacy locations to get a combination of high-touch and high-quality care. The pharmacy team members at these locations receive disease state-specialized training and solutions based on the needs of their local providers, and they help patients get on therapy within 48 hours on average.1

In addition, we have nearly 9,000 specialty-enabled retail pharmacies where innovative technology enables prompt resolution of financial barriers, drug access issues and insurance support. We also have several digital solutions to provide on-demand access to additional resources and services via our Walgreens App and Walgreens Find Care?. Connecting our patients with their Walgreens pharmacist is just a phone call—or a click—away.

Insights-driven, technology-supported coordinated care

Our health plans and providers can rely on us to ensure that patients get what they need at every step along their healthcare journey because:

• Our community-based specialty pharmacists know what is needed to help patients get started on their therapies with as little friction as possible.
• Our pharmacists at our more than 1,000 local, specialized network locations and our central Specialty360 centers of excellence teams have condition-specific training.
• We have technology in place to reduce friction while obtaining key lab values and other clinical information necessary for appropriate patient management.
• Our clinical platforms make it easy to communicate with providers—whether it’s notifying the provider and sharing the care plan when a side effect occurs or developing patient-reported outcomes solutions to monitor progress with therapy.
• Our Specialty Scope payer reporting portal allows our payer partners to access on-demand clinical insights across central specialty and retail locations as well as our community-based pharmacies.

All of this means working with a partner that can provide data-driven insights and solutions that help provide the best care for our patients.

A holistic care approach at every point of the care continuum

We recognize that our patients have complex and varied healthcare needs. That’s why we have clinical programs that ensure our patients have the care they need by:

• Providing support with Walgreens Connected Care? oncology program, which ensures that a woman with breast cancer is filling her tamoxifen as well as her specialty medications
• Leveraging data science to identify those patients most likely to struggle with appropriate use of a new therapy
• Ensuring appropriate antiemetic use and regularly screening for depression for select conditions, which can result in improved outcomes for patients

Our omnichannel solutions provide high-touch pharmacist outreach as well as convenient, digital solutions, empowering patients to take control of their well-being and improve their adherence.

A seamless journey with value for all

Ultimately, this means that Walgreens is working hard to help achieve the best outcomes possible. This total healthcare journey support is also offered across a range of diseases and disease states. Walgreens is uniquely designed to do all of this because we understand that customers, health systems, providers, and Walgreens are all on the same patient journey together—and that by working together, we can make the journey better for everyone.

Please enjoy this video representing a seamless patient journey.

1. Walgreens internal data. Specialty Operations. McIlwraith J. September 2020–August 2021.