Log-in for pharmaceutical needs, information

Starting next month, Walgreens is offering an online pharamacy that not only allows its customers to conduct personalized pharmacy transactions, but also access prescription history, health and drug information.

The national drugstore chain, is launching the site to enable their customers to submit new and refill prescription orders to have either at-home delivery or pickup from any of the company’s more than 2,700 locations. While that is the primary mission, the site also serves as an information resource--particularly with an information feed of drug information from the Mayo Clinic resource site.

Developing an informational and service site has been a growing priority for Walgreens and they’ve done much of the development themselves.

"Just as we prefer building our own stores versus acquisitions, we're building our pharmacy Internet site organically, rather than simply acquiring or partnering with an existing one," said David Bernauer, Walgreen’s president. "This allows us to provide pharmacy patients with a more comprehensive online experience."

Recently announced technology providers for the site include US Web/CKS, which provided the design and development for the site.

Content management provider Interwoven , is providing its Interwoven TeamSite to develop and manage the Web content for the new Internet pharmacy, a significant change from the site’s previous system.

“We currently manage Web content manually, which can be a tedious and time-consuming process,” said Tim McCauley, manager of information technology for Walgreens. “Interwoven TeamSite will be the key to managing the increased amount of content on our new site."

Art Technology Group provided the Web application server with its Dynamo Product Suite.

"ATG's Dynamo allows us to add the power of the Internet to our brick-and-mortar capabilities,” said McCauley. “We looked at other Web application servers but they did not have the clean integration path to our existing systems and content that is critical to the success of our site.