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Walgreens has launched Find Care Now, a digital platform that makes healthcare services more accessible to customers.
The US-based pharmacy store chain developed the platform to consolidate information regarding available healthcare services for its customers. Aside from showing customers the prices of medical services, the platform can connect customers to healthcare facilities and practitioners in the vicinity of the user. Moreover, customers can set personal appointments with health professionals or have online consultations. The digital platform also shows users the average waiting time for calls with medical professionals.
Because a lot of patients often take costly visits to the emergency room, Find Care Now addresses this problem by providing an easy way for customers to get in touch with the health practitioners they need.
Walgreens released Find Care Now shortly after losing $6 billion in stocks when Amazon acquired PillPack in June. PillPack is an online pharmacy that sorts medicines and delivers them to patients with multiple medications. Amazon’s acquisition of PillPack suggests that the retail company is gearing up for the expansion of its services to pharmaceutics.
Through Find Care Now, Walgreens hopes to gain the upper hand by underscoring its relationship with local healthcare providers, which Amazon lacks at the moment.
Walgreens said that it intends to improve the platform but did not disclose specific details about the improvements. An analyst from financial firm Edward Jones believes that Walgreens will continue to work with businesses in the healthcare industry and offer more services in its physical stores. With this, physical stores are still expected to remain relevant even with the launch of the new digital platform.