Walgreens, Physicians Group Announce Collaboration

"It's invaluable for our physicians to have a pharmacist as a clinical partner sharing this type of information that can be critical to a patient's health," said Daniel Derman, MD, president of NMPG and vice president, Northwestern Memorial. "This benefits those patients tremendously because now there's a richer conversation with their primary doctor that is supported by the pharmacy documentation. It's a more complete way of serving patients and it's particularly rewarding in this instance because those patients are also our employees."

Walgreens pharmacists and NMPG physicians have collaboratively developed an intervention plan for each disease, with questions designed to engage patients and help them understand their diseases.

"Many of our chronic disease patients tell us they see their pharmacist more often than they do their doctor," Crawford said. "Giving physicians further insight into patient behaviors and working with them to spend more time talking with patients can help reduce health care costs and, more importantly, improve a patient's overall health."