Firsthand info! About 10 Chicagoland stores have been converted and from what I understand, no additional stores will be changed this year. Next year, the pilot will have lots of data to evaluate to see whether or not they will expand to other stores. I can tell you that every store that this has been implemented into are VERY high volume stores. I am talking about the busiest stores in their district and region. By putting this program into these crazy stores, Walgreens will be able to tell if Project One will work in the worst case scenario. Floaters are to begin training to be able to work in the Project One stores in the next few weeks at district. It is supposedly a 2 day ordeal to be fully trained.
As far as what I have seen being different from a classic Walgreens, it is pretty vast. All of the Project One stores went through deep remodeling.. and I'm not talking about CCR remodeling. I mean, new floor, new registers (touch screen), new aisles, new setup, new pharmacy, new clinic, new windows (apparantly they are putting full length windows in at the front of the store near checkout)... Just about the only thing reminding you that you're in a Walgreens is seeing the Walgreens logo strewn about. There is a significant increase in the amount of fresh food, beverages, and frozen items. There are a couple refrigerated bays housing individual salads, sandwiches, wraps, sushi, cakes, pies, and more & another with fruits and vegetables. The aisles are tighter because it seems as if they added more. The setup could have been done better. It is very bright, but there are lots of twists and turns and nothing really flows.
Photo is no longer in a separate area. The front checkout is now combined with the photolab.. a long counter with several registers, 5 or 6. Looks very similar to CVS.
Cosmetics has white lights everywhere and does not mirror the rest of the store. It is very flashy, perhaps too much? And yes, there is still a cosmetics counter with a register (however much, much smaller).
Pharmacy is very different. The new layout resembles a "P". We're all used to straight pharmacies and corner "L" pharmacies, and now we have "P". It is a lot wider. At the bottom of the P is where the drive thru is and the pickup/dropoff/ask your pharmacist a question/everything area, and the upper/wider part of the P is where the drugs are kept and where the filling counter is. You can not see this area from outside of the pharmacy. Forget about filling multiple prescriptions at once because our once large filling counter has now been shrunk to about 3 feet. We also used to have a compounding counter in the back which was left out of the plans for the remodel, so now we have nowhere to compound. Filed and bagged up prescriptions are no longer easily accessible, as they are now behind a large obstruction that requires you to leave the sight of the patient to go fish it out. Where you would expect the old consultation window to be is now home to 2 stations where patients can scan their refill bottle, pay for the refill using a credit card swiper, and pick up their order.. all automatically. They are calling this "express Refills" (no one uses it). The waiting area now has a tv monitor hanging from the ceiling that shows waiter patients in a queue. Something i like! The screen shows the first name and last name initial and whether or not the prescription is "In progress", "Ready", or "see pharmacy staff." Right by the entrance to the pharmacy is where they have a station where the pharmacist's desk is. They have a computer and a phone. No, the pharmacist is not stationed on the floor. Yes, they are technically outside of the pharmacy, but they couldnt get any closer without actually being inside.
The new workflow works so that the F1ing, F4ing, product verifying, and patient/doctor phone calls are all centralized. All prescriptions are filled on site. There is no facility filling the next days rxs. We do them all. BTW, Product Verify consists of the tech holding the drug under a camera
. Customers seem more irate than usual. Who can blame them with longer wait times? Of the phone calls we do get, a reoccuring question is, "Is there a special number I can dial to speak to this store directly?" I wouldn't mind giving that number out if they made it possible but it is not. I already somehow miss answering the phones. No hours were lost, but instead added. But that may be a nasty game they are playing on us.
God only knows how much money they spent on the store because wow it sure is different! We shall see how this works in time as it has just begun!
) for me.
