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Features for Senior Citizens
Wal-Mart to Change Landscape of Healthcare with
Addition of Health Clinics
400 to open in three years, 2,000 in five to seven
years
 April 25, 2007 - Wal-Mart intends to contract with
local hospitals and other organizations to open as many as 400 in-store
health clinics over the next two to three years, and if current market
forces continue, up to 2,000 clinics could be in Wal-Mart stores over
the next five to seven years.
The clinics will post clear prices for services and
procedures, helping to bring much-needed price transparency to the
American health care system.
The clinic program’s expansion is just the latest
in a series of moves by Wal-Mart to help implement customer solutions to
America’s health care crisis, including the $4 generic drug prescription
program, health information technology and participation in a major
coalition supporting comprehensive healthcare reform by 2012.
“We think the clinics will be a great opportunity
for our business. But most importantly, they are going to provide
something our customers and communities desperately need – affordable
access at the local level to quality health care,” said Wal-Mart
president and CEO Lee Scott in making the announcement yesterday at the
World Health Care Congress in Washington, D.C.
Scott’s speech at the World Health Care Congress
was the closing keynote for the three-day gathering of 1,600 CEOs,
senior executives and government officials. His speech focused on the
need for action, instead of “ideological bickering and finger-pointing,
in order to make quality health care accessible and affordable in
America.”
“The fact is the time for politics in today’s
debate on health care is long past. The time for real and meaningful
change has come,” Scott says, adding later, “Yes, this is about
economics. But above all, it is about our health. It is about all of
us -- all 300 million Americans -- living the fullest and best lives we
can.”
Generic Drug Program
Scott said that Wal-Mart customers have saved about
$290 million on selected generic prescription drugs since September
2006, when the company began selling prescriptions for $4 each in Tampa,
Fla. Available nationwide since November, the $4 prescriptions now
account for more than 35 percent of all prescriptions filled at Wal-Mart
and nearly 30 percent of the $4 prescriptions are filled without
insurance.
“The response has been nothing short of
spectacular,” Scott says of the $4 program. “Within days of announcing
our $4 program, countless other discounters, drug stores and
supermarkets dropped their prices on generic prescriptions. That has
surely saved our health care system millions of more dollars. So let
there be no doubt that the private sector can lead,” continued Scott.
Pilot for Clinics Began in 2005
The health clinics, which will lease space in
Wal-Mart stores, will be managed by local or regional hospitals and/or
other organizations that are independent of Wal-Mart. The move is a
significant expansion of a pilot project begun in September 2005, when
Wal-Mart started leasing space to medical clinics inside Wal-Mart
stores. Currently, 76 clinics are operating inside Wal-Marts in 12
states.
“We know that customers like and want these
clinics. At existing clinics in our stores, about 90 percent of patients
report being satisfied or very satisfied. They appreciate the fast, easy
and convenient experience,” Scott says.
Scott notes that surveys in existing clinics
revealed more than half of those who visited a clinic said they were
uninsured. Nearly 15 percent of customers said they would have gone to a
hospital emergency room for their care – thus increasing the burden on
already strained community health care institutions – if they could not
have gone to the clinic inside a Wal-Mart.
The providers running the clinics will determine
what services to offer, which will generally include preventive and
routine care for conditions such as allergies and sinus infections, as
well as basic services such as cholesterol screenings and school
physicals at affordable prices. They will be staffed by either certified
nurse practitioners or physicians.
“We also think there is tremendous potential with
local hospitals as partners for some or all of these clinics. Patients
trust the role hospitals play in providing quality medical care. They
have the medical experience and expertise – and the larger network if
more serious treatment is needed,” Scott says.
Health Technology
Scott highlights Wal-Mart’s work on health
information technology, pointing to Wal-Mart’s partnership with other
corporations to start Dossia, an independent, non-profit group that will
provide safe and secure electronic medical records to their employees
and retirees. Wal-Mart recently joined with the University of Arkansas
and Blue Cross Blue Shield to create the Center for Innovation in Health
Care Logistics, a new research center focused on improving health care
delivery through information technology.
Wal-Mart is also working with leaders in business,
government, labor and public policy on the “Better Health Care Together”
coalition. The goal of the coalition is to assure that affordable,
quality health care is accessible to all Americans by 2012.
Scott urged other companies and organizations to
join the coalition. “There is not a person or group anywhere in this
country that cannot play a role,” he says.
About Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. operates Wal-Mart discount stores, Supercenters,
Neighborhood Markets and Sam’s Club locations in the United States. The
Company operates in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, Costa Rica, El
Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Japan, Mexico, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico and
the United Kingdom. The Company’s securities are listed on the New York
Stock Exchange under the symbol WMT. More information about Wal-Mart can
be found by visiting www.walmartfacts.com. Online merchandise sales are
available at
www.walmart.com.
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