Walgreens at HLTH 2024: Committing to patient care in local communities

During a time when the healthcare landscape is quickly evolving, HLTH 2024 has emerged as a pivotal gathering point for more than 12,000 global attendees to discuss advancements in technology, healthcare policy and patient care. From Oct. 20 to 23 in Las Vegas, Walgreens showed up with a clear purpose—emphasizing the future of retail health through three highly anticipated sessions and engaging in- booth activations including an interactive demo highlighting caregivers across America and an on-site vaccine clinic staffed by local Walgreens pharmacy team members.

Here are a few highlights from our time at HLTH 2024: 

Mary Langowski emphasized the meaningful role of community pharmacy in healthcare  

“I’m very bullish on the role of retail in healthcare, it’s why I decided to join Walgreens in the first place,” said Mary Langowski, executive vice president and president, U.S. Healthcare. “Consumers want more from retail pharmacy beyond vaccinations, and that’s because we’re convenient, we’re at their corner, we’re trusted and we’re typically a more affordable access point for them.”

During the conversation with Heather Landi from Fierce Healthcare, Langowski described how Walgreens is doubling down and building on Walgreens core strengths in pharmacy and the need for new pharmacy economic models. She also discussed how the company is expanding its services like specialty pharmacy and patient engagement to be the independent partner of choice for payers, health systems, and biopharma companies.

Rick Gates on the importance of price transparency in healthcare  

“Our healthcare system hasn’t evolved significantly since I graduated from pharmacy school, and it’s clear it’s not functioning as intended. However, the growing dialogue and innovation in our industry is encouraging,” said Rick Gates, SVP and chief pharmacy officer. “At Walgreens, we're committed to collaborating with partners across the healthcare ecosystem to disrupt the status quo, reduce costs, and improve the quality of care for both patients and providers through greater transparency.”  

Gates joined peers from Amazon and PhRMA to discuss payment reform, alternate reimbursement models and pharma direct-to-patient models. He outlined how Walgreens is partnering with stakeholders across the healthcare industry to simplify the patient experience, improve care coordination and drive down costs, ensuring that patients and providers alike can benefit from clearer, more transparent pricing structures.  

Ramita Tandon focused on clinical trials and biopharma services  

"As the sole community pharmacy integrating clinical trials into healthcare services, our robust infrastructure, trusted relationships, and advanced technology uniquely position us to lead in making clinical research more accessible and equitable,” said Ramita Tandon, chief biopharma services officer. “Building on this foundation, we are expanding our services to further support partners in pioneering biopharmaceutical development and commercialization.”  

Tandon participated in an intimate conversation with Anjalee Khemlani from Yahoo! Finance, during which they dove into key aspects of Walgreens clinical trials strategy, emphasizing the company’s pivotal role in shaping the future of clinical research. The conversation also explored Walgreens biopharma services, sharing that it is a natural extension of Walgreens clinical trial services as we look to continue to partner with leading biopharma manufacturers. 

Walgreens launches #CommitToCare and administers vaccines to hundreds of attendees

One year after debuting Walgreens new booth design at HLTH 2023, we returned this year with a new interactive retail environment, where attendees learned more about our suite of B2B healthcare solutions, administered nearly 200 vaccines onsite and unveiled the #CommitToCare campaign, where we asked attendees to join us in committing to improving patient care.

Looking back on a successful event, Walgreens leaders stepped up to have tough conversations about fixing a broken healthcare system, highlighted expanded healthcare offerings, and reaffirmed our commitment to both our patients and our partners.