New Health Care Delivery Model Outlined in Walgreens, Microsoft Partnership

In an effort to improve health outcomes and reduce the cost of care, Walgreens Boots Alliance and Microsoft recently announced a multiyear partnership. Together they will develop new models for health care delivery.

“Improving health outcomes while lowering the cost of care is a complex challenge that requires broad collaboration and strong partnership between the health care and tech industries,” said Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft. “Together with Walgreens Boots Alliance, we aim to deliver on this promise by putting people at the center of their health
and wellness, combining the power of the Azure cloud and artificial intelligence (AI)  technology and
Microsoft 365 with Walgreens Boots Alliance’s deep expertise and commitment to helping communities around the world lead healthier and happier lives.”

According to Walgreens, health care systems are complex. They are a combination of both public and private sector organizations, providers, payors, pharmaceutical companies, and others. The pharmacy company explains that while there has been innovation in health care already, there is still a need to fully integrate the system while making health are more convenient to patients through data-driven insights. Walgreens said this opportunity ultimately brought them together with Microsoft.

Through this partnership, Walgreens will use Microsoft’ Azure, a cloud and AI platform. Along with this AI platform, the companies will combine health care investments and new retail solutions with Walgreens’ customer reach, convenient locations, outpatient health care services, and industry expertise to make health care delivery more personal, affordable, and accessible for people around the world. Further, Microsoft will roll out a line of subscription services to more than 380,000 Walgreens employees.

According to Walgreens the integration of information will provide valuable insights based on data science and AI. This allows the companies to fundamentally improve the transition of health care data into a more community-based location. This partnership will “deliver innovative platforms that enable next-generation health networks, integrated digital-physical experiences and care management solutions.”

“Our strategic partnership with Microsoft demonstrates our strong commitment to creating integrated, next-generation, digitally enabled health care delivery solutions for our customers, transforming our stores into modern neighborhood health destinations, and expanding customer offerings,” said Stefano Pessina, executive vice chairman and chief executive officer of Walgreens.

“[Walgreens] will work with Microsoft to harness the information that exists between payors and health care providers to leverage, in the interest of patients and with their consent, our extraordinary network of accessible and convenient locations to deliver new innovations, greater value, and better health outcomes in health care systems across the world.”

Walgreens is comprised of 9560 drugstores and 85000 health care service providers, and fills over 1 billion prescriptions per month.—Julie Gould