CVS Is Taking Its HealthHUB Digital Retail Innovation To Market Across 1,500 Of Its Pharmacies

CVS’s HealthHUB, debuting at three store locations in Houston, Texas, transforms over 20 percent of a brick-and-mortar CVS into dedicated health services, offering patients access to new durable medical equipment (DME) and supplies, digital tools, on-demand health kiosks, and new product and service combinations for sleep apnea and diabetes care. The experience is enabled by learning tables with iPads that customers can use to explore health and wellness apps, as well as on-demand health kiosks that help customers measure and track their blood pressure, weight, and BMI. CEO Larry Melro announced this innovation expansion plan at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco. The move expands on CVS’s delivery of its customer values — a customer-obsessed focus driven by customer feedback that is also disruptive to its pharmacy competitors.

Legal Marijuana Industry Experiences Security-And-Risk Growing Pains

If the legal cannabis industry expects to grow, it needs to make security and risk management a top priority. This fast-growing industry is a prime target for cybercriminals, with risks beyond public embarrassment: The US Department of Health and Human Services considers medical marijuana dispensaries to be healthcare providers. This designation could make breaches such as the THSuite data breach a HIPAA violation, with HIPAA settlements reaching the multimillion dollar range. Three factors place the industry at risk: 1) It’s nascent and, as such, either hasn’t fully implemented risk management or dismisses the need; 2) state law requires point-of-sale systems to track every plant, product, and person associated with the production and sale of marijuana, creating a tempting data pool; and 3) operations and sales are conducted primarily online or through mobile apps, which can be hacked. In THSuite’s case, researchers at vpnMentor discovered an unsecured Amazon S3 bucket owned by THSuite containing 85,000 files of sensitive data from various US marijuana dispensaries, exposing personally identifiable information (PII) for over 30,000 individuals including names, dates of birth, phone numbers, physical and email addresses, medical ID numbers, and products used.

How The Cookie Crumbles: Google’s Decision To Deprecate Third-Party Cookies Roils Industry

Google’s announcement that it will deprecate third-party cookies in the next two years is lighting up our inquiry switchboard. Clients are anxious. The change affects the entire digital advertising ecosystem: Brands, publishers, technology companies, and data providers all face an uncertain future when it comes to how digital adverting will work, who will be involved, and what data will be used and shared. Google’s plans to turn to its privacy sandbox for alternative solutions only adds to the uncertainty. Earlier hints of this move (Apple made similar moves), plus a two-year timeline, don’t make the change easier. The third-party cookie has been the underlying mechanism enabling digital advertising for decades. Rethinking that mechanism, plus the marketing measurement, audience creation, targeting, and personalization for a private, safe environment, won’t happen overnight. To understand what this means for your organization, check out our latest video blog, sign up for our Feb. 24 panel webinar designed to take your questions on the subject, and/or schedule an inquiry with Joanna O’Connell, Tina Moffett, or Fatemeh Khatibloo. This team will make regular updates on market developments.