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Walgreens believes everyone
deserves quality healthcare

Walgreens believes everyone deserves quality healthcare

Walgreens has maintained a steadfast commitment to promoting health equity. Out of the nearly 9,000 locations across the U.S. and Puerto Rico, more than half of them are situated in underserved communities.

Walgreens has implemented measures to enhance our efforts in addressing health disparities. These efforts are guided by our health equity strategy, which ensures shared accountability across business teams and focuses on three pillars: access, education and partnership to improve patient outcomes as we reimagine localized healthcare and wellbeing for all.

By increasing access & education through partnerships, we support the wellbeing of local communities, especially in these focus areas:

  • Social determinants of health (SDOH) are non-medical factors that influence a person’s health and well-being, including where they’re born, grow, live, work, worship and age. Walgreens recognizes health disparities & SDOH, and we offer support & resources to reduce barriers like health literacy, lack of access to transportation, affordability and digital access.

  • Vaccinations & testing for COVID-19, flu and routine immunizations help reduce the risk and severity of illnesses. Walgreens offers patient education to address vaccine hesitancy and accessibility to vaccines & testing.

  • Medication adherence means patients take medications on time and stay on them as prescribed. Chronic conditions last 1+ years (like heart disease or cancer) & require ongoing medical care. Walgreens offers many solutions for patients to manage their chronic conditions.

  • Wellness & care looks at a person’s overall health and well-being. Walgreens pharmacies work with communities & local partners to provide clinical care services for physical, emotional & mental health as well as personalized, whole-person healthcare.

Access

We help eliminate barriers by providing pharmacy and healthcare services whenever and wherever our customers need us by meeting people where they are and how they prefer to engage.

Vaccine Equity. Pharmacy experts were crucial during the COVID-19 pandemic and we have expanded access to care to help the patients who needed us most.

Along with COVID-19 testing and vaccines, we remain leaders in providing annual flu vaccines. Walgreens has been offering 200K free flu shot vouchers each year since 2010.
We have administered 62 Million vaccines in underserved communities and 290K vaccines at 3,700 off-site equity clinics as of April 2023.

Omnichannel. Our comprehensive range of products and services are accessible to all our patients, whether in person at our nearly 9,000 retail stores and 300+ specialized pharmacies, or conveniently online through the myWalgreens app.

Notably, over 50% of our Walgreens locations are strategically positioned in underserved areas. To enhance accessibility, we provide prescription services in 18 languages, and our pharmacy help line supports communication in 236 languages, ensuring that language is never a barrier to quality healthcare.

Free Delivery. The high cost of transportation makes it hard for patients to pick up prescriptions. Free Delivery via FedEx for qualified prescriptions helps patients stay on track.

Social Determinants of Health. We leverage opportunities to identify the interconnected social determinants of health that can impact health outcomes. We leverage screening tools, conversation guides, and training materials to ensure we can both equip our team members and also support our customers.

Primary Care. Walgreens US Healthcare division aims to advance hyper-local initiatives which address community-specific health disparities, particularly among populations disproportionately impacted by a lack of access to quality care. Moreover:

VillageMD co-located clinics offer an accessible access point to primary care services.
CareCentrix home health care solutions identify the right care for the patient and empowers health at home through whole-person care coordination.
Newly launched Walgreens Virtual Care provides convenient, high-quality healthcare for non-emergency conditions, addressing patient access and availability barriers.

Health Equity Champions Network. We have established several internal partnerships to ensure continued transparency, ongoing cross-functional and cross-enterprise collaboration and empower each team member to be a health equity ambassador. The Health Equity Champions Network is a collaborative task force to facilitate interdepartmental communication, enhance transparency, foster two-way engagement, align goals, and amplify efforts within our stores and across various business teams. This network comprises leaders from all 14 store regions of Walgreens, alongside representation from over 25 Walgreens and WBA Support Office teams. The task force is dedicated to driving progress in areas such as performance measurement, external communication, portfolio and partnership development, as well as education and training initiatives.

Education

Expert answers for all. Our pharmacy team invests in relationship and trust building by offering tailored advice for patients and incorporates intentional approaches when discussing sensitive topics.

Health Equity (HE) Incubator

In August 2020, we piloted the first phase in Chicago’s South Side and West Side communities. We addressed healthcare gaps and improved patient outcomes by educating our patients on diabetes management, pediatric asthma management and prescription pickup.
The second phase of our Health Equity Incubator launched in Chicago in June 2022 and expanded to additional markets supported by Microfulfillment.
This phase also included programs on mental health wellness check-ins, new medication routines and taking prescriptions on time. Additionally, the pilot identifies patient challenges to picking up prescriptions and offered free delivery to address transportation barriers.

Chicago Diabetes Management Pilot

As part of our Chicago HE Incubator pilot program launched in 2020, we focused on the importance of medication adherence – ensuring that patients their prescribed medications as directed. Our pharmacists at select Chicago stores reached out to patients living with diabetes to discuss medication questions, the importance adherence, barriers to adherence and explore ways to address gaps in their healthcare. Patients who met with pharmacists one-on-one through our Chicago Diabetes Health Equity Pilot significantly improved medication adherence compared to patients who didn’t receive enhanced education and intervention.

Uninsured Program at Health Corners

In October of 2022, Health Advisors at our Ohio and New Jersey Health Corner locations partnered with state health navigators to connect patients who are uninsured or underinsured with local resources to support eligibility identification and enrollment in eligible government or HIX plans. The Walgreens FindRxCoverage tool was also leveraged to support education and awareness of available options.

Clinical Trials

Our Clinical Trials business launched in 2022 with a robust strategy centered on leveraging our expansive footprint to increase diversity of inclusion in trials, and improved access to trials. These goals focus on increased education and awareness of trials and seek to fundamentally change the paradigm for the patient experience and representation in clinical research.

RxSavings Tool

Walgreens digital tool launched in spring 2023 to provide prescription price comparisons in collaboration with health plans and other third-party digital partners to support informed patient knowledge and affordability.

Partnership for Community-based healthcare

We partner with local organizations, churches, government and healthcare partners across the healthcare system as well as other sectors to reach more patients and reduce health inequities. This also includes active partnership with patients themselves to understand priorities and challenges.

Vitamin Angels: Nearly one million U.S. pregnant people have limited access to prenatal vitamins due to gaps in insurance coverage. Since 2013, Walgreens has been proud to partner with Vitamin Angels to help provide life-changing vitamins to pregnant people and young children in underserved communities across all 50 U.S. states, Puerto Rico and more than 65 countries around the world. Learn more.

Immunization Community Outreach and Engagement: Since August 2023, Walgreens has organized hundreds of local off-site equity and community outreach events to administer various types of vaccines including COVID-19 (Ages 12+), Herpes Zoster (Shingrix), Influenza - High Dose (65+), Influenza - Standard Injectable Quadrivalent, Prevnar 20, RSV (ABRYSVO, AREXVY), and Tdap (Boostrix, Adacel).