Starting Monday, Publix Super Markets Inc. will operate a pharmacy at Nemours Children’s Specialty Care on the Southbank.
Spokeswoman Erin Wallner said Baptist Health, a partner with Nemours, had operated the pharmacy until Walgreens and Baptist Health decided to work together.
With that transition, the Nemours pharmacy closed and Publix was chosen to operate the service.
Nemours is an outpatient specialty care practice that partners with Wolfson Children’s Hospital, part of the Baptist Health system.
Wallner said the 937-square-foot pharmacy will operate in the lobby at 807 Childrens Way.
“For our patients here, a lot of them require medications that are not readily available at pharmacies as easily as one might find other medications,” she said.
She said an on-site pharmacy that carries medications needed by Nemours’ patients “is incredibly helpful to our patient families.”
The pharmacy will operate 8 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Monday-Friday.
It will offer the same benefits as other Publix pharmacies, such as free antibiotics.
Wallner said Nemours sees an average of 700 patients, from newborns to age 18, a day at its three Jacksonville locations, comprising the Southbank clinic and those in Southside and Fleming Island.
Baptist Health and Walgreens announced in November that starting in early January, Baptist’s retail pharmacy operations will be under Walgreens ownership at Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville.
Pharmacies at the Baptist Health system’s six other locations would close, with access continuing at the 50 or so Walgreens pharmacies in the Jacksonville area.
Baptist Health’s inpatient pharmacies and infusion therapy pharmacy remain owned and operated by Baptist.
In addition, Baptist Health said it will own the clinical practice and operations management of retail health clinics at three Walgreens stores in Jacksonville and Northeast Florida.
Those Walgreens Healthcare Clinics are expected to transition to Baptist in May, becoming an extension of Baptist Health.
The Publix-Nemours pharmacy connection began in December in Orlando.
Lakeland-based Publix said then that it began operating the retail pharmacy at Nemours Children’s Hospital in Lake Nona Medical City.
It said the newly enhanced pharmacy offers specialized convenience to children and their families, visitors, guests and health system employees on an outpatient basis.
A news release said the Orlando pharmacy would provide access to specialty medications for children and employees, bedside delivery to the hospital’s inpatient units, access to refills at any Publix pharmacy location and access to certain medications available free through Publix, such as select antibiotics.
Publix said it operated four more pharmacies within hospital systems: Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami; H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Moffitt McKinley Campus in Tampa; and one in Lakeland Regional Medical Center.
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