Walgreens announces expansion of MDLive access and its Connect app launch

Digital health initiatives continue to emerge from Walgreens. This morning, vice president of digital health Adam Pellegrini said its collaboration with MDLive for its telehealth app had added 20 states for a total of 25 as of today.

The additional states that will now provide patients with access to MDLive telehealth services through the mobile app include: Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.

It also launched its Connect app in a collaboration with Qualcomm Life. Walgreens Balance Rewards members who own a Walgreens branded, bluetooth-enabled blood glucose meter or blood pressure wrist monitor can earn points for taking daily measurements. The data is transmitted through Qualcomm’s 2net platform. To date its Balance Rewards program has more than 500,000 active connected devices. More than 90 percent of the active members in the program use a connected device. The app is available in iTunes and Google Play stores.

In a talk at the HIMSS Connected Health Conference, Pellegrini emphasized that it wanted the app to have a user-centric design so that it would provide an easy, frictionless experience for customers and keep clicks to a minimum.

He added that its goal is to put a digital health layer on all of its stores.

The expansion of its telemedicine strategy and collaboration with Qualcomm are the latest in a series of announcements outlining its digital health strategy.

Walgreens recently said it would install Epic Systems in all of its Walgreens Healthcare Clinic convenience clinics.