By Healthcare Facilities Today

Walgreens has announced it is renaming its Take Care Clinics as Healthcare Clinics in its more than 370 in-store locations. The national rebranding effort is already underway and is expected to be complete by the end of August.

According to the company, the clinic rebranding represents the further alignment of Walgreens healthcare assets and affiliations under a singular brand identity. The Healthcare Clinic nurse practitioners and physician assistants are part of a network of more than 70,000 healthcare professionals across Walgreens pharmacy, Walgreens Infusion Services, Walgreens Specialty Pharmacy and other lines of business.

“The new Healthcare Clinic allows us to leverage the strength of the Walgreens brand to help attract and introduce new patients to our retail clinic services, while creating a more seamless healthcare experience serving a wide variety of patient needs,” Dr. Jeffrey Kang, Walgreens senior vice president of health and wellness services and solutions, said in a press release. “The healthcare landscape is evolving, and with a diverse and expansive collection of assets, Walgreens is uniquely positioned to play an integral role in addressing the needs of patients, payers and providers by helping to lower costs to the system while helping more people get, stay and live well.”

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

Since then the company has engaged in additional healthcare initiatives, including the July announcement of collaboration with Johns Hopkins to develop an in-store clinic adjacent to the East Baltimore medical campus offering health and wellness programs and services for students, staff and residents of the surrounding community. 

The number of these types of 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.