Kroger Health pres. on bringing personalized healthcare to 'new level'

Kroger's (KR) healthcare branch, Kroger Health, is setting out to provide patients with more personalized styles of healthcare, from its retail clinics to prescribed nutrition plans. Kroger Health President Colleen Lindholz sat down with Yahoo Finance's Anjalee Khemlani at the 2023 HLTH Conference to discuss the company's retail pharmacies as well as the industry impact from weight-loss drugs.

"We define 'Food as Medicine' as a dedicated, educated, and personalized approach to helping people enjoy food so they can live a healthier life and we can prevent disease before it starts," Lindholz says.

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This post was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.

Video Transcript

SEANA SMITH: Well, health care has been one of the most talked about sectors in 2023, benefiting from increased innovation and the growth of AI, but also at risk from rising rates and fears of a prolonged economic slowdown.

The health conference in Las Vegas boasting some high profile delegates from the industry, from hospital groups all the way to startups.

Now, Yahoo Finance's Anjalee Khemlani spoke with Kroger health President Colleen Lindholz.

They discussed the company's notable push into the retail health space as well as a topic that's front of mind for many in the industry weight loss drugs.

Let's take a listen.

COLLEEN LINDHOLZ: The GLP-1s, they've been around since 2005.

Not sure if you realize that or not.

But the original Trulicity that came out a long time ago for type 2 diabetes, they've been out quite a long time.

But with any drugs there's side effects.

And the side effect of the GLP-1s was actually a good side effect in that it caused people to lose weight.

And so over the years, obviously, there's been many different other drugs come out.

There's one pill form on the market right now.

But what I can tell you is that with the injectables, they're hard to use.

They have storage requirements.

But they have been blockbuster.

I have to say, they've been blockbuster for some people.

And I have to say too that like even the people that I know that are on them, they're pretty much when they're able to lose weight like they've tried diets over the years that have been really tough when they're able to lose weight and in a pretty fast amount of time, they start to feel really good about themselves.

They start to really change their behavior overall.

So we're studying that right now at Kroger.

But I definitely from knowing people that are on those drugs, they're blockbuster for them, especially if they've tried diets over the years, and more of like a kickstart in a new lifestyle.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: So it's not necessarily that they're eating less?

That's not necessarily what you think will be the case.

Or you're not sure yet?

You're still looking at the data?

COLLEEN LINDHOLZ: Yes.

Yeah.

We're still looking at that.

So the way the drug works overall, people are eating less.

But I believe it just makes sense that people are going to trade up to fresh foods, things that are like better for them because they're feeling good about themselves, and they're feeling good about healthy overall.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: Talk to me about on the pharmacy side, though.

You're tracking that obviously as well, the increase in use there.

COLLEEN LINDHOLZ: Yes.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: I now there's a nationwide shortage.

I know we've seen a lot of payers pull back on covering it.

But what can you tell me about the impact you're seeing the newer GLP-1s at least in the pharmacy side?

COLLEEN LINDHOLZ: Yeah, so Wegovy, which was the one that was officially approved for weight loss, has really taken off, and it's really been in retail across the board.

There has been some shortage in getting the medication, so we've had people that have been waiting on it.

But for sure, they've been blockbuster.

And we've been feeling a tremendous amount of the drugs since really the beginning of this year.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: Talk to me about the clinics.

I think not as many people necessarily associate that with the brand.

There's been this huge push into retail health.

We've seen CVS.

We've seen Walgreens.

We've seen Amazon.

Big moves in this space.

You've been around for some time.

Talk to me about the impact there.

Do you feel like it's sort of a slow and steady pace that things have been growing at, or is there more to come?

COLLEEN LINDHOLZ: Yeah, so our retail clinics, The Little Clinic, it's under the banner of The Little Clinic.

We have-- they've been around and a part of the Kroger family since 2010.

So we've had them for quite some time.

And it is very interesting how really health care is coming to the people these days versus people going to health care.

So the great thing about our retail clinics is that they're open seven days a week, you know, unlike when people can't get into their doctor's offices late hours, that type of thing.

We're open.

We see a wide range of things in our clinics.

We take care of a lot of acute issues, you know, people that get sick, strep throat, that type of thing, kids' physicals.

And then we also take care of people with chronic disease.

So because there's a shortage of primary care physicians in the United States, we act as a primary care physician for many different people.

So we're really proud of really the depth and the breadth of what our nurse practitioners and our physician's assistants have been able to do in the community.

I think there's lots more to come, especially when you think about the country moving from a fee for service model to a value-based care model and what will that mean.

And we believe we're going to play a huge part, not only from our clinic side, but then from our pharmacy side in helping people live a healthier life.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: I know that there is definitely a lot of focus also on the food side and food deserts as well.

The social determinants of health has become a big phrase in the industry.

Talk to me about some of the partnerships-- I know Bayer is one of them.

Some of these partnerships that you're helping and whether or not you're able to gather data to measure the impact that you're having there.

COLLEEN LINDHOLZ: Yeah, so when it comes to nutrition we have been working for quite some time on our Food As Medicine platform.

So have you seen anything or heard anything about our Food As Medicine platform?

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: Yes.

COLLEEN LINDHOLZ: Yeah, so it's really we've defined Food As Medicine as a dedicated, educated, and personalized approach to helping people enjoy food, so that they can live a healthier life, and then we can prevent disease before it starts.

What's awesome about our Food As Medicine platform it is anchored by a nutrition scoring system called Opt Up.

So we've been working on this for years also.

And to really combat what's going on in the country with food insecurity, and we call it nutrition insecurity, we've got to have a system to be able to measure food.

And so we've been working on that out with a bunch of different partners to really bring transparency and really simplify, customers, healthier choices for them.

So it's a system that's red, yellow, green.

And really, it helps people-- if they want to opt up to something like in a commodity like cereal or like yogurt, it helps them make a better food choice to opt up to something that has more nutrition value.

So we have multiple partners that we're working with, both on the health plan side to really prove out Food As Medicine and on the pharmaceutical side to bring solutions and tools to the consumer that again, makes it easier for them.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: And so this is part of like an app that they would use?

COLLEEN LINDHOLZ: So it's actually embedded in our Kroger app and in our Kroger website.

We did develop it outside of the company a while back, and then we brought it inside of the company, so it would be better for the customer experience overall.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: So a lot of this going back to the point of really meeting the customers where they are, getting them into the system, and making sure that you're able to monitor that.

Do you see a long term use for this kind of data in terms of what you're going to learn about the customers and how that translates to the use for the health care?

COLLEEN LINDHOLZ: Yes, I do.

So we really believe that the future of health care is personalized, not generalized.

And when we talk about personalization, we can really take it to a new level, especially with the customer's permission.

So I want to make sure that you know that we don't do anything with our data without the customer's permission.

But when we're able to do that, it is amazing how we're able to tweak whether it be diet, or education, or even on the pharmaceutical side to what the patient's needs are.

Like right now if I would suddenly get diagnosed with something terrible like cancer, then my journey would change very quickly.

And so what we're working on is that personalization, really more than anybody ever has.

And because Kroger has a data analytics wing of the company that's been studying customer behavior for a very long time, it's called 8451.

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: Nice.

COLLEEN LINDHOLZ: I don't know if you've heard of that data analytics wing.

We know customers very well.

And again, with their permission, I think we're able to do things that really meets them where they are on their health journey in life.