Walgreens Gambles on Providing Urgent Care Services in Las Vegas

Walgreens, which has established a presence in the retail clinic market by outsourcing most such operations in its stores to third parties, is upping the ante on direct patient care with plans to open higher-acuity walk-in clinics in Las Vegas this year. More on the order of an urgent care center, including the capability to provide x-rays and offer stitches, the four locations will be operated by MedExpress and connected to existing Walgreens drugstores, but have separate entrances. Urgent care insiders have questioned whether there is adequate room in existing Walgreens structures (typically, around 10,000 square feet) to devote to a fuller-service clinic setting, which would require considerably more space than a typical retail clinic like those found in other drugstores.