An advocacy group filed a complaint with state health officials Wednesday alleging Walgreens’ new pharmacy format is a public health and patient privacy risk to Floridians.
Change to Win, a consumer and labor watchdog, filed the complaint with Florida’s Department of Health.
The group said they are concerned about a new pharmacy layout in Walgreens stores called “Well Experience.” This new format removes a pharmacist from behind the counter and places them in a public part of the store.
Nell Geiser works with Change to Win. She said it’s not necessarily a bad thing to have pharmacists closer to consumers.
“But the problem here is that there is still only one pharmacist responsible for the whole pharmacy,” she explained.
“They are going to be increasingly distracted by these new services they need to provide and being in a public area,” she said.” And distraction has been academically shown to increase the danger of prescription errors.”
In this new format, pharmacists will be monitoring prescriptions and staff remotely via computer screens. The group said in its complaint to the state health department that this not only presents privacy issues for consumers, but it also violates Florida statute requiring direct pharmacist supervision of pharmacy staff.
In a statement, Walgreens spokesman Michael Polzin said the stores’ new format allows pharmacists to “practice at the top of their profession, consistent with state Pharmacy Practice Acts, and offers a broad range of needed health care services to local communities.”
The statement also said Walgreens worked closely with each state Board of Pharmacy to review the new model.
