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BENTONVILLE, Ark. – Walmart has announced the addition of 25 new autoimmune-focused Specialty Pharmacies of the Community (SPOC) across five states. These 25 new locations follow the debut of six such facilities last October, and bring the total number of these SPOCs to 31 across nine states.
As many as 50 million people in the U.S. have an autoimmune disease, making it the third-most prevalent disease category, surpassed only by cancer and heart disease, according to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
Walmart’s autoimmune-focused SPOC locations will help patients with many aspects of care, including industry-leading clinical programs, pharmacy services provided by pharmacists trained on autoimmune diseases, enhanced care coordination, healthy lifestyle recommendations and emotional support services.
The focus will remain the three most common categories of autoimmune conditions: joints (rheumatoid arthritis/juvenile idiopathic arthritis), gastrointestinal (Crohn’s disease & ulcerative colitis), and dermatological (psoriatic arthritis/plaque psoriasis/atopic dermatitis). Currently, all Walmart Pharmacies can fill prescriptions for any autoimmune conditions.
A Specialty Pharmacy of the Community is a Walmart retail pharmacy with specialty-trained pharmacy staff, a secondary specialty designation and an offering consisting of condition-specific specialty services.
“These new locations will continue to make this specialized care more accessible,” said Kevin Host, senior vice president of Pharmacy at Walmart. “Since piloting this effort less than a year ago, our teams have seen the need and recognized how to impact the communities we serve in meaningful ways. I look forward to the incredible connections our pharmacists will make with our patients.”
In total, Walmart now has a specialty pharmacy presence at 158 community retail locations across the country through autoimmune, HIV and long-acting injectable offerings and resources.
