Rite Aid has inaugurated its first in-store RediClinics with the official opening of 24 locations in the Philadelphia and Baltimore/Washington, D.C., markets, and company executives are enthused about the boost that the retail clinics will give to its drug stores.

RediClinic CEO Web Golinkin (far left), Rite Aid executive vice president of pharmacy Robert Thompson (middle, back) and Rite Aid president/COO Ken Martindale (far right) at the ribbon-cutting for the new RediClinic in Rite Aid’s Newtown Square, Pa., store.

Ken Martindale, president and chief operating officer of Rite Aid, said at yesterday’s grand opening event at a Rite Aid in Newtown Square, Pa., that the drug chain is targeting 35 RediClinics up and running in its stores by the close of the company’s 2015 fiscal year at the end of February. The clinics have been opening in Rite Aid stores over the past few months.

When asked about how the company has been accommodating the RediClinics inside its stores, he said the retailer has been resourceful in finding the necessary space.

“One of the challenges that we have as a company is that our footprint is different in so many of our stores. There’s really no one-size-fits-all answer,” Martindale said. “In a lot of cases, we are laying out the front end a little differently and tightening up some categories and carving out the space from the front end. And in some cases, where we have bigger stores, there might be some space in the backroom that we can recapture. So it’s a store-by-store process.”

Both Martindale and Robert Thompson, executive vice president of pharmacy, said they expect RediClinic to yield benefits in Rite Aid stores beyond increased prescription sales from clinic patients.

“It should certainly help the front end. Just like it’s helping in scripts, when people are sick they’re also going to the OTC area. So we should see some play there,” Martindale said, noting that it’s still too early to gauge the impact of the recently opened clinics. “I’m confident we’ll see a little bit of a pop on it,” he added.

Said Thompson, “Initially, we have seen that we’re gaining some new customers just because we have the RediClinic. That’s very exciting for us. Not everyone shops at Rite Aid in the communities where we have stores, and this is one more good reason for them to come in. And we’re already seeing some folks that are new to Rite Aid, and we’re delighted about that.”