You’re stopping at the pharmacy to pick up prescriptions, along with some toothpaste or snacks. Why not use the opportunity to catch up on your medical care?
That’s the idea behind a new pact announced Thursday between Hartford HealthCare and CVS Health that links the health system and pharmacy giant to offer expanded primary care services in clinics inside retail pharmacies.
“You would walk in and you may have a same-day need — a cough, a cold — but when you go in, when they look at your medical records… they start to look at what are your care gaps, what are chronic diseases that you may not have been tested for?” said Dr. Padmanabhan Premkumar, president of the Hartford HealthCare Medical Group.
Hartford HealthCare’s doctors will remotely link up with physician assistants and advanced practice registered nurses who will be on-site at 20 of CVS’s MinuteClinic across the state to allow for expanded primary care treatment in the retail setting, with hours on evenings and weekends. The new partnership was announced at an event at the CVS MinuteClinic at 358 West Main St. in Avon.
CVS Health offers adult primary care in partnership with health systems in four other states and has seen an enthusiastic response to the added services, said Jon Thiboutot, president of retail health at the company.
“We know there’s challenges around access. What we bring to the table is nights, weekends, same-day, next-day care,” Thiboutot said. “ And obviously the quality aspect of that is really important. So underpinning all of that is a high degree of quality care that we’re really proud of.”
Medical professionals will share an “interoperable electronic health record” to allow for “seamless communication between MinuteClinic providers and Hartford HealthCare clinicians,” the health system said in a statement. Patient health data is limited to clinicians and fully protected to ensure cybersecurity and privacy, Premkumar said.
Teaming up with MinuteClinic is another step in Hartford HealthCare’s efforts to meet patients where they are in daily life, President and CEO Jeffrey Flaks said. Recent care outreach by the state’s largest hospital network has included an automated kiosk at Bradley Airport and virtual CareStations in a Stop & Shop in Killingly and at The Village for Families & Children in downtown Hartford.
“We need to continue to find more ways to deliver care locally, more conveniently, closer to home and affordably,” Flaks said. “It’s about prevention, wellness, early detection and trying to ensure that we can manage the total cost of care.”
Ongoing efforts to expand care at Hartford HealthCare include the current rollout of an AI-powered chatbot that helps patients get answers to questions and link up with their doctors within their own medical records.
“We’re pushing on in person-care, we’re pushing on technology-based care. We’re pushing on virtual care. We’re pushing on care on the palm of your hand,” Premkumar said. “The CVS relationship for us it’s true primary care. It’s outside the walls of Hartford HealthCare, and now you’re still offering the same level of service.”