{"id":432006,"date":"2026-05-08T16:34:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T16:34:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/432006\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T16:34:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T16:34:15","slug":"hartford-healthcare-joins-cvs-in-expanding-primary-care-at-clinics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/432006\/","title":{"rendered":"Hartford HealthCare joins CVS in expanding primary care at clinics"},"content":{"rendered":"

You\u2019re 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?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the idea behind a new pact announced Thursday<\/a> between Hartford\u00a0HealthCare and CVS Health that links the health system and pharmacy giant to offer expanded primary care services in clinics inside retail pharmacies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou would walk in and you may have a same-day need \u2014 a cough, a cold \u2014 but when you go in, when they look at your medical records\u2026 they start to look at what are your care gaps, what are chronic diseases that you may not have been tested for?\u201d said Dr.\u00a0Padmanabhan Premkumar, president of the Hartford HealthCare Medical Group.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hartford HealthCare\u2019s doctors will remotely link up with physician\u00a0assistants and advanced practice registered nurses who will be on-site\u00a0at 20 of CVS\u2019s 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\u00a0CVS MinuteClinic at 358 West Main St. in Avon.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0Thiboutot, president of retail health at the company.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know there’s challenges around access. What we bring to the table is nights, weekends, same-day, next-day care,\u201d\u00a0Thiboutot said. \u201c 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Medical professionals will share an \u201cinteroperable electronic health record\u201d to allow for \u201cseamless communication between MinuteClinic providers and Hartford HealthCare clinicians,\u201d the health system said in a statement. Patient health data is limited to clinicians and fully protected to ensure cybersecurity and\u00a0privacy, Premkumar said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Teaming up with\u00a0MinuteClinic is another step in Hartford HealthCare\u2019s efforts to meet patients where they are in daily life, President and CEO Jeffrey Flaks said. Recent care outreach by the state\u2019s largest hospital network has included an automated kiosk at Bradley Airport<\/a> and virtual CareStations in a Stop & Shop in Killingly and at The Village for Families & Children in downtown Hartford.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to continue to find more ways to deliver care locally, more conveniently, closer to home and affordably,\u201d Flaks said. \u201cIt’s about prevention, wellness, early detection and trying to ensure that we can manage the total cost of care.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ongoing efforts to expand care at Hartford\u00a0HealthCare 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’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,\u201d\u00a0Premkumar said. \u201cThe CVS relationship for us it\u2019s true primary care. It’s outside the walls of Hartford HealthCare, and now you’re still offering the same level of service.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You\u2019re stopping at the pharmacy to pick up prescriptions, along with some toothpaste or snacks. Why not use…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":432007,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[202629,202630,202631,202632,202633,163,521,85,46],"class_list":["post-432006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-all-daily-sites","tag-capitalregion","tag-centralct","tag-eastoftheriver","tag-farmingtonvalley","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/432007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}