Pharmacy and store staff at Walgreens stores across the country walked out earlier this week, citing poor working conditions, in today's bite-sized hospital and health industry news from Connecticut, Illinois, and Minnesota.

• Connecticut: Cigna will buy digital health company Bright.md for an undisclosed amount of money, Modern Healthcare reports. After the sale, Bright.md will be integrated into MDLive, a Cigna-owned telehealth platform that covers 60 million commercial, Medicaid, and Medicare enrollees. The platform also supports around 2 million annual virtual healthcare visits, including urgent care, behavioral health, and primary care. Starting next year, over 20 million commercial members will be able to access Bright.md providers for virtual urgent care visits through MDLive. "Employers and payers recognize that there are so many different flavors of engagement," said MDLive's CMO Eric Weil. "People lead very busy lives, so we want to offer as many different options as we can." In the future, MDLive hopes to expand Bright.md's services to include wellness visits, as well as chronic disease management. (Tepper, Modern Healthcare, 10/10)
• Illinois: Pharmacy and store staff at Walgreens organized walkouts at stores across the country from Monday to Wednesday, citing understaffing and other poor working conditions. According to pharmacists, technicians, and support staff, increased work demands on understaffed teams, such as administering vaccines while dealing with backlogged prescriptions, have become unsustainable and made it difficult for them to do their jobs responsibly. "When you're a pharmacist, a missed letter or a number that's wrong in a prescription could kill somebody," said a walkout organizer. Currently, it's unclear how many locations were affected by the walkouts, but organizers said over 500 locations in 49 states could have been affected. CNN confirmed pharmacy closures in Arizona, Washington, Massachusetts, and Oregon, and pharmacy staff and customers posted about other closures across the country. In a statement, Walgreens spokesperson Fraser Engerman said the company understands "the immense pressures felt across the U.S. in retail pharmacy right now" and that it is "committed to ensuring that our entire pharmacy team has the support and resources necessary to continue to provide the best care to our patients while taking care of their own well-being." (Bettelheim, Axios, 10/10; Goodkind, CNN, 10/9; Peiser, Washington Post, 10/9)
• Minnesota: Best Buy will soon begin selling Dexcom G7 continuous glucose monitoring systems online — marking the company's first time offering prescription-based medical devices. According to Best Buy Health, the company is working with virtual care platform Wheel and pharmacy partner HealthDyne to sell the device for patients with diabetes. Clinicians at Wheel will first determine if a patient is eligible to buy a device before sending a prescription to HealthDyne, which will ship the device to patients. The device will cost $179.99 for a 30-day supply and is expected to be available for sale online by the end of November. "We know how important it is for people living with diabetes to have access to the solutions they need to better care for themselves," said Deborah Di Sanzo, president of Best Buy Health. "Providing a simplified experience that allows customers to take control of their health is another great example of how we enable care at home for everyone." (Japsen, Forbes, 10/9; Hudson, Modern Healthcare, 10/9)