Retail Watchers

Interesting idea. It appears that at this time it's unknown whether they'll expand this beyond 2 stores.

http://www.azcentral.com/story/money/bu ... /76116240/

Longs Drugs used to have Collection Labs at many of their stores. In fact, some of those collection labs have been turned into medical clinics by CVS after CVS took over. The labs were closed around the time of the CVS takeover of Longs Drugs.

Safeway is just trying to make a little money by using those little rooms they added to their pharmacies for lab collection. This time they are using a reputable lab company that uses traditional blood draws. Sonora Quest also does sperm collections at some of their locations. That's kind of awkward... for a supermarket.

I really think these labs, clinics, etc. need to be at the front of the store. Not in the back. Ideally they maybe should even have their own entrance from outside and an optional passage way to/from the store. Medical can be a bit of a private matter to people and the idea of walking all the way through a busy store and into a clinic next to a busy pharmacy as the line of 5-10 people waiting for prescriptions watches does not appeal much to me.

The Longs Drugs Flagship store in Walnut Creek had a lab at the front of the store off to the side and it was far away from the pharmacy. The lab space was sealed over and I assume became part of the backroom.

Looks like Safeway and Quest wants to expand to more stores. They mention Texas stores specifically...and since it mentions Safeway specifically, I'm guessing Tom Thumb stores in that case, but I could be wrong. Of course, it wrongly calls Mark Panzer the Safeway SVP of Pharmacy, Health, and Wellness, so that could be anything.

http://medcitynews.com/2016/06/theranos-quest-safeway/

What even is this lab testing stuff? That looks a little strange... but maybe it goes in with all the pharmacy components.

Turns out the Texas store is a Randalls store in Houston. There's a chance Tom Thumb might get one, but I doubt it.

http://www.chron.com/business/bizfeed/a ... 240058.php