Honor has aligned itself with Walmart as part of the caregiver-on-demand service provider’s expansion strategy in Texas, according to a news release. Honor CEO and Co-founder Seth Sternberg previously talked about its expansion to Dallas-Fort Worth when the company completed its Series B round.
Although it is just a pilot for now, Honor’s store-within-a-store concept is branded as Honor Care at Home and is in two Walmart stores in Dallas-Fort Worth. These units allow customers to get a care and safety consultation with a report they can take home with them. They can also purchase and schedule a home care and safety modification assessment visit for their homes and receive a demonstration of the Honor’s app.
The in-store presence could prove to be a useful recruiting avenue for Honor, which will need to boost its Care Pro ranks to grow and thrive in this new market.
Honor hired Kathryn Parsons as general manager for Honor’s Dallas operations last month. She is tasked with managing Honor’s Dallas office and local staff across sales, its partnership team, and the Care Pros. She is also expected to build local partnerships with health systems and senior community facilities.
“Our goal is to educate consumers and learn more from them about what they need to be safe in the home,” Parsons said in a short phone interview. Although the plan is to focus on the two stores, there could be opportunities to expand, depending on how well received Honor is in these stores.
Walmart has previously partnered with DirectHealth.com LLC, an insurance agency with web connections to 1,700 plans with 12 health insurers dating back to 2014. A query about Walmart’s DirectHealth partnership was not immediately answered when this story was published. Walmart also has an online pharmacy.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
This deal with Honor shows a willingness to forge digital health initiatives at a regional level. A couple of years ago, Walmart provided tenancy to Telmed Ventures to offer telemedicine services in at least one suburban Philadelphia store.
Rivals such as Walgreens and CVS Health have been more aggressive and public with their digital health collaborations spanning telmedicine, consumer wellness and other services. But they too have had to back away from the occasional partnership that just didn’t work out such as Walgreens with Theranos and RiteAid with HealthSpot, though RiteAid did acquire the telemedicine kiosk company’s assets.
Yet Walmart, with its wide retail footprint and presence in rural markets, would seem well positioned to considerably expand its activity in the digital health space. Despite their enthusiasm, Walmart and other retailers are still assessing how to implement digital health services and it will be interesting to see what direction that takes.
Photo: Honor
