As a federal pharmacy partner, Walmart potentially can deliver federal allocations of COVID-19 doses in all pharmacies of both its namesake stores and Sam’s Club locations. Under government guidelines, after top priority demand has been met, people in the next priority group can receiving remaining doses, since the relative fragility of the vaccines otherwise threatens doses going to waste.
Other retailers stepping up alongside Walmart —or at various points after— if mostly on smaller scale and in less medically neglected areas, include Albertsons-Carrs-Safeway , Meijer, H-E-B , Hy-Vee , Amazon Aldi Kroger, Publix, Ahold Delhaize within certain limits
(The United Food and Commercial Workers Union
Walmart’s approach to workers and customers alike is messaging, with muscular purpose, for an expanded healthcare provider role to the medically underserved communities who are its key customer base, employees included.
The company began selling Medicare plans intends to open at least 22 health locations
Case in point rural hospital in Texas received any doses of vaccine the week of December 21, despite that such medical outposts serve about 20% of that state.
In the past decade alone shut down
And more millions go under-served in non-rural areas, due to local poverty most of all, worsening as big urban systems acquire and then constrict small urban clinics and practices in the same way they do rural clinics, practices, and hospitals.
The domino effects of closures go in all directions: health outcomes for patients worsen and mortality is higher especially rurally (23% to 34% worse, depending upon diagnosis), including by suicide; lost jobs in the dozens and hundreds worsen the immediate economy, increase the proportion of uninsured and underinsured, those who can leave do and those left behind are older, poorer, and worse in health; merging or affiliating with large healthcare systems tends to tighten what services are offered, notably prenatal and maternal care, primary care, and diagnostic technology, with snowball effect on local clinics; medical students from rural settings are more likely to eventually practice in a rural area, but rural med student enrollment goes down as community medical presence goes down; as diversity in medical schools constricts, discrimination from above increases against students, colleagues and patients who come from under-served backgrounds, both in the teaching setting and later workplaces, aggravating the sense of divide between urban and rural people of all backgrounds… the impacts are endless.
At the same time as conventional conditions worsen, outside-the-box innovation is
And although we inch closer and closer to universal healthcare coverage
Meanwhile, it’s possible that Walmart moving to meet needs in medically under-served areas may be one of those odd instances of business expanding goods-&-services diversity to capture a considerable market opportunity … and do the right thing in the process.https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/918137
Meanwhile the COVID-19 vaccine gets delivered far better than it otherwise looked to. That’s only a good.
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