Marcus Osborne, who played a key role in Walmart's push into healthcare and headed up its medical clinics, has left the retail giant.
Osborne, who served as senior vice president of Walmart Health, announced his departure in a LinkedIn post Jan. 1.
"After nearly 15 years, I wanted to share that I’ve departed the Walmart Health & Wellness business. I first want to thank the organization and its leadership for allowing me to be a part of so many opportunities to try to make the Healthcare System a better one for people across the country," he wrote.
Osborne was the head of the Walmart Health clinics until late 2021, when he moved into a new role involving strategy and innovation in the company's health and wellness division, Insider reported.
RELATED: HLTH21: Where Walmart is focusing its health efforts in the next 5 to 10 years
Walmart has made a handful of moves in the past several months alone to expand its presence in the healthcare market, including adding virtual care, drug discount programs, a single unified electronic health record system for its clinics and a new partnership that will bring its low-cost pharmaceuticals to self-insured employees.
The retailer operates 20 medical clinics in Arkansas, Georgia and Illinois with plans to expand into Florida.
Each of these efforts are pushing toward what Walmart’s health leaders say are its goalposts for the next several years: omnichannel care offerings that are low cost, equitable, trusted and meet consumers on their terms, according to statements made by Osborne and Cheryl Pegus, M.D., Walmart's executive vice president of health and wellness, during the HLTH 2021 conference in October.
With Osborne's exit, the five executives who spearheaded the original design of the clinics have left the company, Insider reported. These executives include Sean Slovenski, a top Walmart Health executive who left in August 2020; Karim Bennis, one of Walmart's chief operating officers for health and wellness; Thomas Van Gilder, M.D., the company's former chief medical officer; and Phil Suiter, the company's chief wellness officer.
RELATED: Walmart unveils employer market team-up with Transcarent
Pegus, who took the reins as head of health and wellness in late 2020, has brought on a new team of executives as the company broadens its focus beyond just healthcare clinics.
A year ago, she tapped David Carmouche, M.D., a former executive at Louisiana health system Ochsner Health, to serve as senior vice president of omnichannel care offerings, which includes the Walmart Health clinics and its telehealth business, MeMD, which it acquired in May. Carmouche also will lead Walmart Health's social determinants of health line of business, Pegus announced in a LinkedIn post.
A Walmart spokesperson told Insider that Walmart Health sits under Carmouche.
Pegus also hired Kevin Host, the former president and chief operating officer of pharmacy services organization Avita, to serve as senior vice president of pharmacy at Walmart. Host will lead the redesign of pharmacy and innovating Walmart's specialty model, Pegus said in an announcement.
Other recent hires that beef up Walmart's healthcare leadership team include Andrea Marks, a former UnitedHealth Group executive, as vice president of clinical performance; Brian Setzer, a former executive vice president at Highmark Health, as chief financial officer; and John Wigneswaran, M.D., the former chief medical officer of Express Scripts, as the new chief medical officer of Walmart's health and wellness business.