Get a cancer screening on your next trip to the supermarket? You can at this new Temple clinic inside a Philly ShopRite

Temple Health opened on Tuesday a clinic providing free health screenings inside a Nicetown ShopRite in an effort to improve access to preventative health care.

The “Healthy Together Hub” will offer free screenings for cancer and other conditions. The clinic will also offer health education, with Temple neurologists giving information on Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, and staff from its School of Pharmacy helping clients learn how their medications interact. Social workers will be available to help patients navigate the behavioral health care system or get connected to food and housing services.

The ShopRite, in a shopping complex at 2800 Fox Street, sees about 24,000 customers a year. Temple officials hope that the hub can reach about 5% of those customers in its first year. The clinic does not require insurance, and its services are free.

“This is a very comprehensive, holistic health center where education and screenings will take place. But we need the community to come out and take advantage of this opportunity,” said Lakisha Sturgis, Temple’s director of community care management. The Fox Street ShopRite is her local supermarket, and the opening of the clinic on Tuesday is a “personal and professional achievement,” she said.

The clinic does not have an in-house pharmacy, like those available at many supermarkets in the Philadelphia region. (The Nicetown ShopRite does not have a pharmacy.) Rather, Temple hopes to use the hub to connect with patients who might find it difficult to seek care at other Temple locations that are farther away.

“We’re meeting people where they are,” Sturgis said.

Steven Carson, Temple’s senior vice president for population health, said that the idea for the clinic stemmed from Temple’s mobile health services during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The health system used an RV to travel to community health fairs and offer COVID testing and vaccinations.

The new clinic is focused mostly on health screenings. “If we identify something that’s abnormal, we can connect you to a provider so you can get your follow-up care, so you’re not walking around with something that you didn’t know about,” he said.

The Fox Street location has previously had success hosting temporary health screenings, said Sandy Brown, executive vice president of Brown’s Super Stores, which runs several ShopRites in the region. A few years ago, she said, 60 people showed up to a one-day breast cancer screening event at the store.

“The community does trust us from a health perspective. It sounds kind of crazy to come to your local supermarket for that, but 60 people came here because of trust for the brand,” she said. “We really think that we can generate a lot of connection.”

After Temple officials cut a ribbon to open the clinic Tuesday, staffers stayed to chat with shoppers as they entered the grocery store. Some customers who stopped by the clinic opening said they were already patients at Temple Health, and welcomed the opportunity for a more convenient location for health screenings.

Pat Moore, who lives near the ShopRite, said she was more likely to get screenings in a hospital setting, but was intrigued by the new clinic. “If they have something here, I’ll always stop to see what’s going on,” she said.

Lakisha Rodriguez, one of the community health workers working at the clinic, handed out first-aid kits and helped passersby sign up for a raffle to win an air fryer. “I love to do outreach in the community, because people don’t know what resources are available,” she said. “I’m excited to catch people at the door.”