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Rite Aid opens RediClinics in Seattle area

Rite Aid Corp. has brought RediClinic into a new market with plans to open 11 retail clinics inside its stores in the greater Seattle area.

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CAMP HILL, Pa. — Rite Aid Corp. has brought RediClinic into a new market with plans to open 11 retail clinics inside its stores in the greater Seattle area.

Rite Aid said Wednesday that the new RediClinics will be operated under a joint venture with MultiCare Health System, a nonprofit health care group serving the Puget Sound region. The drug chain noted that MultiCare currently operates a convenient care clinic inside the Rite Aid pharmacy at 5700 100th Street SW in Lakewood.

RediClinics are currently open inside Rite Aid stores in Bellevue (two locations), Arlington and Mill Creek, Wash. Later this spring, seven more RediClinics are slated to open in Rite Aid stores in Kenmore, Mercer Island, Monroe, Mukilteo, Sammamish, Shoreline and Woodinville, Wash.

Robert Thompson, executive vice president of pharmacy at Rite Aid; Web Golinkin, chief executive officer of RediClinic; and Bill Robertson, president and CEO of MultiCare Health System, announced the joint venture and inaugurated the first of 11 clinic openings with a ribbon-cutting on Wednesday in the Rite Aid pharmacy at 15100 S.E. 38th Street in Bellevue, Wash.

“Rite Aid is excited to announce this joint venture, a strategic expansion of our existing relationship with MultiCare Health System,” Thompson said in a statement. “MultiCare shares Rite Aid and RediClinic’s commitment to providing high-quality, convenient and affordable health care to the communities it serves, and we look forward to collaborating with MultiCare to offer an additional level of care to our customers across Seattle.”

The RediClinics in Seattle will be staffed by board-certified MultiCare nurse practitioners, who are trained and licensed to treat common conditions and provide preventive services in collaboration with MultiCare-affiliated doctors. Patients can be treated for more than 30 common medical conditions, and the nurse practitioners can write prescriptions for those conditions.

“MultiCare is pleased to expand our partnership with Rite Aid, bringing more health care choices to patients in King and Snohomish counties,” Robertson commented. “We know that consumers are looking for convenient access to high-quality care, and RediClinics offer such an option.”

RediClinic, acquired by Rite Aid in April 2014, currently operates 30 clinics inside Rite Aid pharmacies in the greater Baltimore/Washington D.C., Philadelphia and Seattle areas as well as 34 clinics inside H-E-B supermarkets in Houston, Austin and San Antonio, Texas. The Seattle locations mark the second large-scale opening of RediClinics in Rite Aid stores this year. In February, Rite Aid held a grand opening for 14 new in-store RediClinics in the Philadelphia area and 10 in the Baltimore/Washington, D.C., region.

In a conference call in early April on Rite Aid’s fiscal 2015 results, chief financial officer Darren Karst indicated that the company is aiming to open about 50 RediClinics during its current 2016 fiscal year.

RediClinic’s preventive health services include screenings, medical tests, immunizations and basic physical exams, and its Weigh Forward weight/lifestyle management program is also offered at many locations.

“We are very excited to partner with MultiCare, a leader in patient care in Tacoma and across Washington, as we work to open the first RediClinics in the Pacific Northwest,” Golinkin stated. “As one of the pioneers in convenient care, RediClinic has served more than 1.7 million consumers since opening its first clinic in 2005, and we look forward to introducing our unique model of high-quality, convenient and affordable care to Seattle area residents.”

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