Dollar General Corp. is expanding healthcare product and services offerings to meet more of its customer needs and establish itself as a health destination.
Dollar General initially plans expand products such as cough and cold, dental, nutritional, medical, health aids and feminine hygiene products across many of its stores, the company stated. However, Dollar General has greater ambitions down the health care services road, one taken by Walmart, Walgreens, CVS and Target. The initiatives involved already have begun to alter how mass-market retailers approach the consumer. As HomePage News has reported, Walmart has recently created a health benefit for its members of its loyalty-boosting Walmart+ program while also launching an initiative to provide lower-cost insulin for consumers with diabetes among other initiatives.
Dollar General has appointed Albert Wu, M.D. to the newly created position of vp, chief medical officer. Wu will help the company develop a new wellness services operation, Dollar General noted, developed to establish and strengthen relationships with wellness partners as they are now and will be in the future as part of its effort to build a comprehensive network of affordable services for DG customers.
Before joining the retailer, Wu was at McKinsey & Co. where he led a team that created a total cost of care model for 250,000 rural healthcare patients, oversaw multiple hospital provider turnarounds totaling $2 to $5 billion in revenue and designed a digitally-driven healthcare insurance product offering.
“At Dollar General, we are always looking for new ways to serve, and our customers have told us that they would like to see increased access to affordable healthcare products and services in their communities,” said Todd Vasos, Dollar General’s CEO. “Our goal is to build and enhance affordable healthcare offerings for our customers, especially in the rural communities we serve.”
