Dive Brief:
- Dollar General announced on Thursday it has created a Healthcare Advisory Panel comprised of subject matter experts in the industry to help guide the discounter with its increasing focus on health and wellness.
- The chain also announced the appointment of four members to the panel, including Dr. Patrick Carroll, chief medical officer of Vida Health and previously CMO at Walgreens, and Dr. Von Nguyen, clinical lead of public and population health at Google.
- Dollar General’s new panel builds on the chain’s focus on becoming a “health destination” with a wider assortment of health and wellness products and services.
Dive Insight:
Dollar General CMO Dr. Albert Wu established the company’s new healthcare panel, according to the announcement.
Wu joined Dollar General last July at a time when the chain said it was expanding its assortment of dental, nutritional, medical and feminine hygiene products, health aids and other items and other items as part of its strategic efforts to increase access to healthcare offerings. The chain has said that will leverage its existing store footprint, infrastructure and supply chain to provide more health offerings to rural America.
A few weeks after Wu’s hire, Dollar General CEO Todd Vasos — who is retiring from the top role later this year — told investors that turning its stores into health destinations could become one of the company’s largest financial engines. Company executives also noted at the time that the DG Fresh initiative to self-distribute frozen and refrigerated items has been a continuing factor in the chain’s financial success.
The four members of Dollar General’s Healthcare Advisory Panel bring a range of experience. Nguyen has worked as a population health expert in the public health sphere and has helped build health-focused collaborations across organizations. Carroll has experience across retail health, managed care and integrated delivery networks and has overseen strategic initiatives, clinical and quality programs, and provider groups relationships.
Dr. Katy Lanz, chief strategy and product officer at Personal Care Medical Associates, and Dr. Yolanda Hill Wimberly, senior vice president and chief health equity officer at Grady Health Systems, round out the panel.
Lanz is a national board director for the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization and has 20 years of experience in designing, implementing and scaling care delivery models. Wimberly is a board-certified physician in both pediatrics and adolescent medicine and developed the “vision and strategic direction” for Grady Health System’s health equity efforts.
“[T]he panel will provide guidance and prioritization of efforts in the areas of health and wellness at [Dollar General],” Wu said in a statement. “We are proud to have a diversity of perspectives and experience represented on the panel, helping us better understand our customers and provide meaningful solutions to the complex problems of healthcare.”
