Walgreens has begun deploying iPads to pharmacy employees as in-store tools for helping customers with prescriptions. The initiative is a slow rollout, with Walgreens only sending iPads out to 16 stores in the Chicago area.
A designated employee will wander the aisles of each Walgreens with an iPad in-hand. The iPad probably won’t help you buy the right birthday card, but you’ll be able to get information on medicine and other pharmaceutical needs.
The Chicago Sun-Times reports:
The health guide — a new, full-time employee stationed at 16 Walgreens stores in the Chicago area — is part of the Deerfield-based company’s efforts to become what it calls a “health and daily living resource.”
“The concept is meant to create a pharmacy and health care ‘help desk’ where customers get solutions or referrals for their personal health questions,” said Colin Watts, Walgreen Co.’s chief innovation officer.
The iPad program also keeps customers from talking the pharmacists’ ears off with questions about the right type of prescription. Instead, the iPad will act as a portable ‘help desk’ that a Walgreens employee can use to answer questions on the store floor.
Walgreen’s health guides use the iPads to access information ranging from government databases to physician ratings to so-called “blue button” medical records available to U.S. military personnel and government employees and retirees.
Walgreens hasn’t given details on expanding the initiative to other regions at this time.
