Walgreens installs robotic micro-fulfillment centers in its stores to boost prescription workflow, ease the work of pharmacists and improve care for its patients in the Midwest.

Pharmacy services at Walgreens in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota are set to improve with a new robotic micro-fulfillment center. This building will help support nearly 200 stores from the Midwest, with 145 located in Minnesota alone and it will process an average of 13 million prescriptions a year.

Walgreens has now added the new center to the 11 robotic micro-fulfillment hubs it already has across the country. With robotics, these centers automatically fill prescriptions which cuts down on work for pharmacists and helps them give more attention to patient needs.

After the Walgreens micro-fulfillment program started in 2021, the company saw shipments from robotic centers rise 24% over the previous year. Currently, robots in CVS stores handle almost 40% of prescriptions, processing more than 3.5 million per week.

Rick Gates, the head of Walgreens pharmacies, said that adding more robots responds to people’s growing needs for nearby health care. He explained that pharmacies with micro-fulfillment centers let pharmacists have more patient interactions.

Walgreens isn’t the only business; Amazon Pharmacy, Kroger and Walmart are also using robotics to help improve how they manage their product supply.

It is expanding its pharmacy research by adding online courses and making same-day delivery more widely available. In the U.S. and Puerto Rico, Walgreens maintains over 8,500 stores, known for being one of the first in healthcare to explore robotics.