A case study on Walmart’s Healthcare Begins Here programme

How Walmart’s retail healthcare program has helped American manage their own health

Walmart is the Fortune 1 Company with $485 billion in revenue1; $50 billion coming from health related products and services annually. Walmart is a multinational retail corporation based in the US that operates over 5,000 supercenters, stores, neighbourhood markets and clubs nationwide and employs more than 1.4 million US associates.

1 Fortune Dec 2015 - http://fortune.com/fortune500/walmart-1/

Overview

Walmart understood the growing demand and lack of knowledge surrounding obesity, chronic disease prevalence and health literacy across the United States. They knew that by 2020, nearly 20% of the US GDP is projected to be spent on healthcare and saw an opportunity to make an impact in healthcare while catering to the 150 million consumers that walked through their stores every week.

Walmart strived to transform how people thought about retail healthcare and unite the wide range of Health & Wellness products and services they already offered (e.g., pharmacy, clinics, DME, immunizations) while expanding into new programs and products based off their consumers needs’ (e.g., health literacy tools, insurance assistance, screenings, etc.).

Walmart engaged PwC to help bring their vision of a one-stop-shop, retail health destination to life. The team facilitated strategy workshops with cross functional internal stakeholders, vendors, and agencies to align on overall brand strategy.

What did we do?

Walmart engaged PwC to help bring their vision of a one-stop-shop, retail health destination to life. The team facilitated strategy workshops with cross functional internal stakeholders, vendors, and agencies to align on overall brand strategy. This included designing a customer experience, and defining content requirements for print/digital educational collateral, while enhancing operational efficiencies through playbooks and supporting execution.

What impact did we make?

In 2014, “Healthcare Begins Here” began as a passport to healthier living event at local Walmart stores throughout the country. Through the programme consumers were provided healthcare information to guide them on their journey to live healthier lives. Consumers also had access to several preventative services such as free blood pressure, blood glucose and vision screenings and access to immunizations and a one-stop-shop health insurance enrolment platform.

The success of “Healthcare Begins Here” proved that Walmart can make a difference in healthcare and has led to other successful initiatives including new supplier collaboration opportunities beyond the pharmacy to reach the biggest winner: the customer.

Contact us

Jeff Gitlin

US Health Industries Advisory Leader, PwC United States

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