Updated: Walmart Health Rapidly Adding New Executives to its Leadership Team

Marcus Osborne, who played a key role in Walmart’s push into healthcare and headed up its medical clinics, has left the company. Osborne, who served as senior vice president of Walmart Health, announced his departure in a LinkedIn post Jan. 1, 2022.

Walmart is committed to making health care more affordable and accessible for customers in the communities it serves. To expand on this commitment, the company launched Walmart Health to provide affordable, transparent pricing for key health center services for local customers, regardless of insurance status.

Walmart Health is focused on the needs of the patient and customer by partnering with several on-the-ground health providers to be a first-of-its-kind health center to deliver primary and urgent care, labs, x-ray and diagnostics, counseling, dental, optical and hearing services all in one facility.

Walmart Health’s goal in the short-term is to provide omnichannel care offerings that are low cost, equitable, trusted and meet consumers on their terms.

Walmart Health is rapidly hiring executives to its leadership team as reports have the division facing a reality check on its visions of high-touch, in-person care with Covid-19 curbing foot traffic and giving virtual care a clear, if temporary, edge.

David Carmouche, MD, will become Walmart Health’s senior vice president of Omnichannel Care Solutions, where he will oversee the retail giant’s expansion of clinical care offerings and operations, including its retail health clinic push.  

Dr. Carmouche will join Walmart Health from Ochsner, where he serves as the executive vice president of value-based care and network operations. Walmart and Ochsner have teamed up on several initiatives in the last few years.

Additionally, Cheryl Pegus, the executive vice president of health and wellness at Walmart, has been using LinkedIn to announce new hires within the organization. These include:

• Kevin Host will be taking over as senior vice president of pharmacy at Walmart. Prior to joining the retailer, he served as the president and chief operating officer of Avita and held roles at Pharmaceutical Strategies and OptumRx.
• Andrea Marks has been appointed vice president of clinical performance of Walmart’s health and wellness team. She previously served as the vice president for the People Analytics Center of Excellence for UnitedHealth Group, and held roles at OptumRX and Catamaran. 
• Brian Setzer was appointed chief financial officer of the retailer’s health and wellness division. Prior to taking on this role, Setzer was the executive vice president of enterprise planning and operations at Highmark Health, and has also held roles at Cigna. 
• John Wigneswaran was named chief medical officer. He was previously the chief medical officer at Express Scripts, and has also held roles at DaVita Kidney Care and Fresenius Medical Care North America. 

Takeaway: Reports have Walmart Health rapidly hiring new executives to help the division gain traction in meeting its objective of high-touch, in-person care