Oak Street Health plans to open its new clinic on Euclid Avenue on Friday, expanding access to primary health care services to patients in underserved areas of the community.

The clinic, at 215 Euclid Ave., is in the former CVS pharmacy near Park Fair Mall on the city’s north side. CVS closed the store in March 2023.

Dr. Megan Romine, senior medical director at Oak Street Health, said the clinic will meet patients where they live, maintaining the vitality of the neighborhoods where they live.

“We really want to help people stay in place in their communities wherever possible,” she said. “We want to be a very local, accessible option for people to get their health care in their neighborhood. That’s really important because it helps people stay in that neighborhood longer and contribute to the vitality of that neighborhood for a longer period of time.”

The clinic will eventually employ as many 50 people once it’s fully operational, Romine said.

Romine said they are “high-quality jobs in an organization with a really positive culture.”

Oak Street Health’s model is to focus primarily on older adults and help them better use their Medicare benefits in one location. It provides not only primary care but also behavioral health services as well the opportunity for older adults to have social opportunities, ranging from exercise classes to internet lessons, and other events and recreational activities.

“That area is underserved from a health care perspective,” Romine said. “We offer as many services as we can right there at the office. We do basic lab work in that office. We do some basic testing in that office. And in addition to primary care, we offer behavioral health and social work. It’s really to be part of the community.”

The clinic also has a community room that can be used for activities not only for patients but for members of the community, too, Romine said.

The new clinic is the second Oak Street Health clinic in Des Moines. It opened its first Des Moines clinic at 4841 S.E. 14th St. in November. It has one other Iowa clinic in Davenport. In total, Oak Street Health has more than 200 clinics in 25 states serving more than 230,000 patients.

CVS Health acquired Oak Street Health in May 2023. According to Healthcare Finance, the transaction was valued at about $10.6 billion. CVS financed the deal with $5 billion from a term loan and existing cash and available resources. Oak Street Health operates as a multipayer primary care provider as part of CVS Health. Leaders of CVS and Oak Street Health said the acquisition will reduce health care costs and improve outcomes, particularly for patients in underserved communities. More than half of Oak Street Health’s patients are facing risks in housing, food or isolation.

Romine said the clinic will meet the needs of Iowa’s aging population as medical care is consolidating “and moving farther and farther from communities.”

“We are really excited to open this community-based primary care office that’s going to be very accessible for older adults,” she said.