BioPointe Case Studies: Take Care Health Systems by Walgreens

Retail Clinic Expansion | Nurse Practitioner

Situation: In 2007, BioPointe was engaged by Take Care Health Systems (TCHS), a wholly owned subsidiary of Walgreens, to provide talent acquisition best practice consulting and staffing services. Take Care Clinics are staffed primarily by board-certified family nurse practitioners (FNPs) who treat patients 18 months and older for common illnesses and also provide diagnostic screenings. As a new concept of care, FNP’s were reluctant to show interest in a retail practice setting and were barely responsive to the marketing efforts and recruitment programs executed by the TCHS internal recruiting team. The TCHS executive management team was extremely concerned they would not reach the projection they had publicly announced which was the opening 250 clinics by the end of 2008.

Objective: BioPointe’s objective was to assist in the enhancement of the current talent acquisition process, to share best practices with the internal recruiting team, to assist in staffing the clinics, and to insure the projection was met.

Action: With a high level of urgency in mind, BioPointe’s human capital consultant team kicked off the project by repackaging the opportunity and making it much more appealing when presented to highly qualified candidates. Second, developed a strategic plan consisting of numerous strategic touch points to advanced registered nurse practitioners (ARNP’s). For example, BioPointe deployed talent acquisition teams across the country to attend ARNP professional trade show functions on behalf of TCHS. The teams also conducted targeted direct mail campaigns followed up by incentivized “Meet and Greets” and provided tours of selected Take Care clinics for the nurse practitioners to actually see for themselves what a clinic looked like. BioPointe then prepared an in depth project report and scheduled a site visit at TCHS headquarters in Conshohocken, PA to brief the executive management team and gain a deeper understanding of the corporate culture. While at headquarters, the BioPointe consulting team conducted a best practices recruiting forum with the internal TCHS recruiting team. The project was a massive undertaking for BioPointe and proved to be a very rewarding experience.

Result: Hired over 250 FNP’s within 12 months. At the end of 2008, TCHS was operating close to 300 retail clinics in select Walgreens, making it one of the largest retail clinic operators in the Unites States. Through best practice consulting, TCHS is now recruiting advanced registered nurse practitioners (ARNP) across the country with limited third party agency involvement which significantly decreased operating costs and increased overall profitability.