Retail drugstore chain CVS said it will close 25 of its in-store MinuteClinic locations in Greater Los Angeles by Feb. 25.
Those locations are spread throughout Southern California, including the San Gabriel Valley, Orange County, the Westside, the San Fernando Valley and Ventura County. The company said in a statement that the decision to close the 25 MinuteClinics was to “help support future growth and design the next evolution of community health destinations.”
After the closures, 11 MinuteClinic locations will remain open in the Greater L.A. area, as well as virtual care options, CVS said.
The MinuteClinic is an in-store healthcare provider that can diagnose and treat common illnesses, administer vaccines and routine lab tests and treat minor injuries. CVS started opening outposts in 2006 in an attempt to bring simple healthcare closer to patients, said Kate McCarthy, vice president and team manager for healthcare and life science at consulting firm Gartner. At a time when physician clinics were consolidating and care options started to coalesce at hospitals, which were often farther away from customers, CVS saw an opportunity.
But with the rise of telehealth, clinics that treated only minor ailments in person became less desirable. Investment in virtual care is where the industry is heading, McCarthy said.
“I don’t see a signal that this is a failure of MinuteClinic, or that this is even a failure of that geography,” McCarthy said. “What I see is that it’s a very healthy response of a retail organization to appropriately re-balance their products and services to meet changing market conditions.”
CVS said it would look to give affected employees other job opportunities within the chain. Employees who do not find a new job within the company will be offered severance.
