Hopkins, Walgreens to Partner on Research, Outcome Protocols

(Walgreens/Evergreen Devco)

Johns Hopkins Medicine (JHM) in Baltimore, Maryland and the drug store chain Walgreens have agreed to collaborate on population-based research and jointly review and develop protocols to improve outcomes of patients with chronic diseases. JHM and Walgreens will also together explore development of new ways to improve care for individuals that include new educational programs for Walgreens’s health care service providers.

In addition to its 7,700 drug stores in the U.S., Walgreens provides health and wellness services to employers, managed care organizations, health systems, pharmacy benefit managers, and the public sector. A Walgreens subsidiary, Take Care Health Systems, manages work site health centers and in-store convenient care clinics at than 700 locations in the country.

JHM researchers will devise with their counterparts at Walgreens ideas for population-based research that can tap into Walgreens’s advanced data systems and a large patient base, prerequisites for such large-scale studies. Both parties stress that all patient information used for these studies will be anonymous.

As part of the agreement, Walgreens and JHM will review Walgreens’s health care protocols and guidelines for chronic disease management, covering conditions such as asthma, diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, and heart disease. The goal is to transfer the expertise developed though JHM’s research into operational guidance for Walgreens’s pharmacies, clinics, work site health centers, information systems and health care service providers. In addition, JHM and Walgreens will explore jointly developing lifestyle, chronic care, and disease-specific programs.

JHM will advise Walgreens as well on professional education and training for the chain’s physicians, nurse practitioners, nurses, technicians, pharmacists and other health care staff. Walgreens has some 70,000 health care service providers.

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