Walgreens, the biggest drugstore chain in America, is expanding its telehealth services, the company has announced. In partnership with MDLIVE, the company is going to start offering its telehealth platform in Washington, Illinois, and Colorado.
It’s also expanding access to the platform beyond mobile. Now, users can access it not just through the mobile app but also through the Walgreens website.
Launched last December in Michigan and California, the platform essentially connects users to a network of doctors, allowing for virtual consultations. It even allows medical professionals to offer electronic prescriptions via the app.
Walgreens and MDLIVE are positioning the platform as a more convenient health consultation option for customers, but also as a major cost-savings opportunity for both patients and healthcare providers. Speaking in a press release, Walgreens VP Adam Pellegrini explained that “with a growing need for access to affordable health care services, we believe telehealth solutions can play an important role in helping to improve patient outcomes and continues our mission to provide a seamless, omni-channel digital health experience.”
A lot of organizations are getting in on this angle. New technologies, especially in the mobile domain, are enabling a wealth of new opportunities in remote healthcare, and demographic changes are forcing many hospital systems to start looking for ways to cut costs – a big one being finding ways to keep patients out of hospital beds as much as possible. Solutions like the virtual consultations enabled by Walgreens’ mobile app are thus very much in-demand, and increasingly so.
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