In a bid to reinvent itself as a healthcare destination, Dollar General (DG  ) announced last Wednesday that it would hire its first-ever chief medical officer, Dr. Albert Wu, and stock its shelves with a broader variety of health products.

"At Dollar General, we are always looking for new ways to serve, and our customers have told us that they would like to see increased access to affordable healthcare products and services in their communities," said Todd Vasos, Dollar General's CEO, in a press release. "Our goal is to build and enhance affordable healthcare offerings for our customers, especially in the rural communities we serve."

With 17,400 locations, nearly 75% of the U.S. population lives within five miles of a Dollar General. Many rural areas with a Dollar General often lack drug stores and grocery outlets, giving the company a unique entry point into the healthcare space.

Dollar General plans to build 1,000 expanded locations and to renovate 1,750 others this year alone. The new and refreshed locations will undoubtedly provide more shelf space to stock the promised health products Dollar General will be offering.

In the meantime, the company's new CMO, Dr. Albert Wu, will develop relationships with health partners as the company expands its offerings. Additionally, Dr. Wu's prior experience in building out a cost of care model for 250,000 rural patients could prove invaluable as the company works to meet healthcare needs in remote areas.

Reception on the Street to Dollar General's push has been largely positive, with the stock price ticking up slightly on the day of the announcement. Jefferies analyst Corey Tarlowe expects that Dollar General will continue to leech market share from drug stores, whose prices are often 40% higher. Dollar General's efforts will "further solidify the company's moat" in the discount retail space, he wrote in a research note.

Dollar General has also been working with public health officials to address the pandemic. Last month the company offered free Covid testing at select locations in a partnership with the Virginia Department of Public Health. Dollar General has also been in discussions with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) about delivering vaccines at some of its locations. Although so far, talks seem to have stalled with a CDC spokesperson telling Bloomberg in May that the two had decided not to pursue "a formal partnership."

Yet such a partnership might be necessary, according to new research from Judith Chevalier and Jason Schwartz and their colleagues at the Yale University schools of management and public health. Their analysis compared the locations of pharmacies partnered with the federal government to deliver vaccines to the locations of Dollar General stores. When they expanded vaccination sites to include Dollar General, the team found that vaccine access went up by double digits in some areas where inoculation rates continue to lag.

In Arkansas, which has one of the nation's lowest vaccination rates, the research found that only 31% of low-income households live within one mile of a state-run vaccination site or an authorized pharmacy. However, when the researchers added Dollar General stores to the mix, that number shot up to 48%.

"The dollar store footprint...lends itself to thinking about this broader aim of making vaccines available right where people are located, and the people that are disproportionately under-vaccinated in so many of our cities and communities right now," Professor Schwartz told Bloomberg.