Walgreens to add in-store health centers

DEERFIELD, ILL. — Following in the footsteps of the BayCare-Publix partnership, pharmacy giant Walgreens plans to add LabCorp patient service centers at 10 stores in Florida, including two in Pasco County.

Deerfield, Ill.-based Walgreens began adding the co-branded LabCorp centers last year at stores in Colorado and North Carolina, according to a press release. The sites offer LabCorp patient services in a secure, comfortable environment for specimen collection, located near the pharmacy area inside Walgreens stores.

“We’ve had an outstanding experience with the six LabCorp at Walgreens locations that opened last year,” states David King, LabCorp’s chairman and CEO, in the release. “Patients and physicians have responded enthusiastically to having access to lab testing in a high-quality health care setting. The success of those initial sites, and the overwhelmingly positive market response, caused us to make the decision to expand this initiative to Florida.”

Walgreens, in the release, states that lab testing at its retail locations fits the company’s strategy of collaborating with health care providers to complement its core pharmacy expertise and bring affordable services to customers.

In Pasco County, the Walgreens stores that will have LabCorp patient service centers are located at 1841 Little Road in Trinity and 5432 Little Road in New Port Richey.