Walgreens bringing back "good old days"

Back in the "good old days," a customer might stroll into the neighborhood drug store to seek advice from the pharmacist about a nagging cough, then walk over to the counter and order a fountain drink and snack from the soda jerk.

The newest incarnation at Walgreen's hearken back to some of those days.

In-store medical clinics with nurse practitioners dole out both treatment and advice about that cough.

For fountain drinks and snacks, Deerfield-based Walgreen created Caf½ W, a counter with a variety of foods and drinks to go.

"They're going back to what they used to be," said John Melaniphy Sr., a Chicago-based retail consultant. "People forget Walgreen's had fountain drinks and food 40 or 50 years ago.

Caf½ W is still in the testing phase, with about a half dozen in the Chicago area and more than 100 across the country, according to Catherine Lindner, divisional vice president of marketing development at Walgreen.

"Caf½ W," she said, "is our way of going back to the future."

A variety of companies run the clinics inside the Walgreen's stores. In the Chicago-area, Conshohocken, Pa.-based Take Care Health Systems operate the clinics.

Nurse practitioners diagnose, screen, vaccinate and sometimes treat patients. A supervising doctor is always on call.

Open seven days a week until 8 p.m., the clinics don't take appointments, just walk-ins.

"They answer a need not being filled in our society and that is convenience and immediate access," said Dr. Stephen Sproul, who oversees the clinic at a Mount Prospect Walgreen's store. "Patients don't have to sit for hours in a doctor's office."

Sproul said about 40 percent of the customers are uninsured or don't have a relationship with a doctor. In some of those cases, patients get referred to his private practice, Metrodocs in Mount Prospect.

Sproul has served on a quality assurance oversight committee for the clinics and said he believes "safety is not an issue."

Walgreen currently has 63 clinics operating in stores across the country and aims to have 400 by next year.

The average clinic visit costs from $59 to $74, according to Take Care. The target customer is a mother, 35 years old or older.

Sproul said the most common ailment is upper respiratory, such as coughs.

In-store clinics are the latest retail rage, popping up in Wal-Mart, CVS and Target stores. Their ranks are expected to boom to about 6,000 by 2012, according to the California HealthCare Foundation, a health-care research group.

Melaniphy said retail analysts already have a slang terminology for the clinics, "Docs in boxes."

"They're bringing the clinic to the neighborhood," Melaniphy said.

Walgreen also added a section called the "European Beauty Collection," with department-store-quality European beauty products.

Printer cartridge refills and Internet photo uploads at Walgreens.com are among the additional services.

Drive-throughs started appearing at local stores in the early 1990s but now are a staple of most of its 5,807 stores.

The additional features at Walgreen's stores mean some stores need modifications and new stores are larger, up from 13,000 square feet to around 14,500 square feet.

Still, as much as Walgreen's stores have changed, Lindner said continuous research at stores means more changes are in the works.

"The Caf½ W you see today won't be the same Caf½ W in a couple years," Lindner said. "There are very few times we do something and then just stop."

The changes don't entirely account for Walgreen's success but the company appears to analysts to be humming along, beating their expectations last quarter.

Last quarter profits rose 20 percent on sales that rose 12.5 percent. More importantly, same-store sales rose nearly 8 percent.

Walgreen spokesman Michael Polzin declined to indicate interior changes in the works but said tests are being conducted at select stores around the country.

"There's probably 100 tests going on around the country all the time and most customers won't ever see them," Polzin said.