Walgreens’ multitudinous c-c-c-changes from the suites to the streets. Financially, Walgreens’ US Healthcare segment in Q1 2024 (Oct-Dec 2023) grew sales to $1.9 billion versus prior year’s $989 million. This included VillageMD’s revenue from Summit Health and some growth at CareCentrix (home care) and Shields Health Solutions (specialty pharmacy). But losses continued, with an operating loss of $456 million and adjusted operating loss of $96 million, reduced from the prior year’s $152 million loss. This is also after their November layoff of several senior staff and 5% of corporate workers following a May layoff [TTA 10 Nov 2023]
- On the earnings call, new CEO Tim Wentworth confirmed that VillageMD has closed 27 under-performing clinic locations. This is a little less halfway through the 60-location previously announced closure. This is a key part of the $1 billion in 2024 cuts announced at the end of last quarter by then-acting CEO Ginger Graham [TTA 18 Oct 2023]. Healthcare Dive
- VillageMD’s weakness has been filling physician ‘patient panels’. A patient panel is one doctor’s patient count treated over typically 12 to 18 months. This can be as high in primary care as 2,500 patients, though no numbers were cited for VillageMD. According to Wentworth, VillageMD is now “on a diet”; fewer locations, more patient concentration at available clinics, patient panels and profitability goes up. Or so the math goes. Forbes
- Walgreens also has trouble in the IT department. Key indicators: Neal Sample is their third CIO in a year, layoffs in staff among employees and contractors, departures of key managers, and the need for new technology including AI to support operations. Graham has cited the new pharmacy inventory system to more accurately forecast demand using AI as an example of the direction she sees IT taking. (Let’s hope it will quiet the rebellious pharmacists.) The former CIO, who departed in September, stocked up on AI and engineering talent at the expense of other needed roles. The Wall Street Journal’s deep dive from December.
Year’s end brought a stop to some of the musical chairs in the CVS Health C-suite. CFO and appointed president of Health Services Shawn Guertin turned his leave of absence due to family health reasons into a formal departure at the end of May. Interims Tom Cowhey moves from SVP corporate finance to CFO and Mike Pykosz, the CEO of Oak Street Health, becomes president of Health Care Delivery. Release, FierceHealthcare
Oracle Health also has the music up and the chairs out.
- General Manager Travis Dalton is departing on 1 March to join MultiPlan as president and CEO. He succeeds Dale White, who moves to executive chairman replacing the retiring chairman Mark Tabak after 23 years with the company. MultiPlan is a payer cost management company that serves about 700 payers in payment and revenue integrity, network-based and analytics-based services. Dalton is the fifth of 10 senior executives from Cerner to depart after the late 2021 sale to Oracle.MultiPlan release, HIStalk 1/5
- Oracle Health’s chairman, Dr. David Feinberg, has also been making some transitional moves of his own, joining Aegis Ventures as a senior advisor while remaining at Oracle. His role is to help Aegis work with a consortium of health systems on developing and launching digital health products. Interestingly, there has been no disclosure of the percentage of time he will spend at Oracle versus Aegis. Dr. Feinberg also is a Humana board member. He joined Cerner from Google Health and within a few months, Cerner was sold. Modern Healthcare
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