Walmart Inc. is expanding the reach of its health services with today'sopening of a Walmart Health center at the company's historic Store No. 1 in Rogers.
Next to the Supercenter at 2110 W. Walnut St., the Walmart Health facility will be only the second in the state. A center opened in Elm Springs in June 2020, and a Walmart Health in Fort Smith is scheduled to open later this year.
The Rogers location will be the 26th Walmart Health across Arkansas, Florida, Georgia and Illinois.
The company chose to open another Northwest Arkansas location partly because of the presence of the company's Bentonville headquarters, said Dr. David Carmouche, senior vice president of omnichannel care offerings for Walmart Health and Wellness.
Also, Carmouche said Arkansas' population has a prevalence of high blood pressure, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
"These are the conditions that we want to address in our care model," Carmouche said. "We want to help people live healthier lives and not just treat illness later."
But Arkansas doesn't have as many primary care providers for its residents as some other states do.
"About one quarter of Arkansas residents don't have a primary care provider," Carmouche said. However, the Walmart Health centers have a large pool of talented providers, with most coming from Arkansas, he said.
And Store No. 1, which was Walmart's first store, "is kind of an iconic location," he said. "It's seen all the transformation of retail, so as Walmart sees a big part of its future solving more pain points for its customers, and health care being an example of one, we thought co-locating a clinic at this store ... made a ton of sense."
The retailer is testing a different, more innovative layout in the clinical care team's work area at the Rogers center, Carmouche said. The office space will be more open to facilitate a more cohesive, team-based work environment, he said.
The Store No. 1 site will be a little larger than the one in Elm Springs, measuring about 6,500 square feet compared with Elm Springs' 5,600 square feet. Carmouche said that clinic, at 4870 Elm Springs Road, is one of Walmart Health's most popular.
Like the Elm Springs clinic, the Rogers clinic will use an electronic health records system called Epic, Carmouche said. This is the most popular electronic medical records system because it can share information more readily with other providers such as hospitals and clinics.
"It's a pretty significant investment," Carmouche said.
Also, he said many rooms have been configured for telehealth services, which will be available from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sundays for patients near one of the centers.
The Rogers clinic will offer the same services as the Elm Springs center. These include primary, urgent and preventive care; dental, optometry and hearing services; behavioral health care; immunizations; telehealth; and X-rays and other diagnostics.
All Walmart Health clinics are staffed by a range of medical professionals.
Besides the Sunday telehealth hours, Walmart Health is open from 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. on weekdays, and from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. on Saturdays.
Walmart introduced Walmart Health in 2019, saying its goal was to make health care more accessible, convenient, and affordable regardless of insurance. Fees for services are listed at WalmartHealth.com, and appointments may be made there as well. They'll also accept walk-in patients.
The Walmart Health centers aren't the company's first venture into providing health care services to the public. The retailer had in-store Care Clinics in three Southern states for several years, but now only has four locations in Texas, according to its website.