Call it the point-of-care revolution: The accelerating shift of patients from overcrowded doctors’ offices to accessible, clinically engaged pharmacists and retail clinicians for front-line health-and-wellness services.

With the development and use of innovative wearable health devices and smartphone health apps exploding, the decentralization of health care will likely reach a crescendo in 2015. Increasingly, consumers and physicians are embracing technologies that can continuously monitor a host of such physical conditions as heartbeat, lipid levels, medication adherence or motion — and wirelessly transmit the data to a host computer or smartphone. 

Drug Channels Institute on Tuesday offered a sneak peek to its 2014-15 Economic Report on Retail, Mail and Specialty Pharmacies with a look at the largest pharmacies, ranked by total U.S. prescription dispensing revenues for calendar year 2014.

Walgreens on Tuesday announced that it has signed a definitive agreement with Madison Dearborn Partners, a leading private equity firm based in Chicago, under which MDP will acquire a majority interest in Walgreens Infusion Services.