By Healthcare Facilities Today

A new Walgreens store is being developed adjacent to the Johns Hopkins East Baltimore medical campus to offer health and wellness programs and services for students, staff and residents of the surrounding community. 

In addition to its pharmacy, the store will include a Take Care Clinic, staffed by board-certified nurse practitioners, marking the first Walgreens in-store retail health clinic in the state of Maryland.

In April, Walgreen Co. announced it was expanding the types of services it offers in its Take Care Clinics to include the diagnosis, treatment and monitoring of chronic illnesses such as diabetes, asthma and high blood pressure. 

The number of such retail health clinics in the U.S. is projected to double in the next three years due to increasing demand of newly insured patients under the Affordable Care Act, according to a report released in June from global consulting firm Accenture. According to the report, the number of patient visits at retail clinics will account for 10 percent of non-primary care outpatient visits by the end of 2015.

While there is some debate within the healthcare community about the capability of these clinics to adequately service patients for conditions traditionally treated by primary care physicians, there also are those who view these clinics as being crucial to community healthcare. 

Kaveh Safavi, M.D., J.D., managing director for Accenture’s North America health business, said in a press release, “… retail clinics will reduce capacity constraints by referring lower-acuity patients to clinics while ensuring hospitals have capacity for more complex cases.”

At the new Baltimore Walgreens, Johns Hopkins physicians will collaborate with nurse practitioners at the Take Care Clinic, and will be available during clinic hours for consultation. Johns Hopkins also has a collaborative practice agreement at a Take Care Clinic in Washington, D.C.

“This is a significant next step in our relationship, leveraging the clinical expertise of Johns Hopkins Medicine and Walgreens expansive healthcare resources to create a retail hub for community-based care,” Kermit Crawford, Walgreens president of pharmacy, health and wellness, said in a press release. “Our pharmacy and Take Care Clinic will provide an environment for collaborative healthcare innovation, while also providing greater access to healthcare services for the Johns Hopkins community, students, employees and patients.”

With an emphasis on population health and wellness, the Walgreens store plans to introduce a number of programs in collaboration with Johns Hopkins Medicine faculty, including student health services, chronic disease education and awareness programs, and smoking cessation programs. 

Patricia M.C. Brown, JD, president of Johns Hopkins HealthCare, said in a press release: “These programs will provide a novel approach to population health and medical services. They will benefit not only Johns Hopkins employees and the surrounding community, but also form the level of healthcare collaboration that could serve as a national model.”

The store marks a significant expansion of a collaboration between Johns Hopkins Medicine and Walgreens, first announced in May 2011, to explore the development of new models for improving overall patient care.