Clinic openings and closings

Clinic openings and closings / MinuteClinic / Take Care Health / Target / The Little Clinic / Walmart — No Comments
2
Sep 10

Green Shoots, The Sequel (vol 3)

Clinic operators continue to shift their mix of locations, closing here, opening there, changing operating hours elsewhere. Target’s announcement of plans to open five new Chicago-area clinics (Chicago Breaking Business, 9/2/10; immediate access) is just the latest sign of retail clinics’ continued evolution.

UPDATE: WalMart has also recently opened a new clinic in Palmyra, ME – it’s 100th retail clinic, according to available news stories.

Target has made few changes in its clinics mix in the past few years. The five new Chicago clinics will bring their total to 36 – a large move percentagewise, but not one that will vault Target into the ranks of the leading clinic operators, CVS (MinuteClinic), Walgreens (Take Care Health), Kroger (The Little Clinic), or WalMart.

Clinic openings and closings / Driving forces / Flu / MinuteClinic / Tactical innovation — 1 Comment
30
Aug 10

Thinking Flu Shot? Schedule It

We’ve never been clear why retail clinics have not done more experimenting with scheduling. Like MinuteClinics’ new flu scheduler initiative:

Flu Shots Your Way

Or Target’s since-discontinued online clinic visit scheduler.

My sense is that Target took down its online scheduling application due to lack of use – but why not make it available, even if it’s seldom used? Its very availability suggests that Target has its would-be clinic visitors’ ease & convenience in mind. I suppose it raises issues for onsite juggling of onsite walk-in customers – who may be unaware of clinic scheduling options – and those in the know who HAVE scheduled visits.

Management of customer perceptions of ‘privilege’ is not insignificant, but may be enough, combine with low use, to make mothballing scheduling the right move.

Can anyone help clarify this for me?

Clinic openings and closings / Driving forces / Retail clinics: field reports — No Comments
17
Aug 10

Two (Or More?) Faces of Mobile Health

We don’t comment primarily on health applications of telecommunications technologies, or on public health initiatives. We’re firstly about health care that features convenience (I like convenience. People like convenience).

We remind you, dear reader, of our principal theme to give you context for our posting the following links to two otherwise apparently unrelated health care topics, both identified by their authors or editors as about “mobile health”:

Mobile Clinics Seen As A Way To Cut US Health Bill (Scott Malone, Reuters, 8/11/10; immediate access)

The [Family Van] — which visits six low-income neighborhoods around Boston weekly — is one of about 2,000 such mobile clinics in the United States. Advocates say the approach can help control the rising cost of health care by helping people with chronic diseases to stay out of the emergency room, often the first recourse for inner-city residents.

Mobile Health and the FDA: What WellDoc’s Approval Means for mHealth (Jane Sarasohn-Kahn, HealthPopuli, 8/10/10; immediate access)

While an “N” of 1 = 1, and WellDoc’s approval is for one product from one company, the approval of DiabetesManager represents a positive sign for the many developers of mobile health applications waiting in the wings for market approval.

We’re confident that your familiarity with Healthcare 311 would equip you to advise those authors & editors that their subjects are also squarely in the realm of “convenient health”.

Because they are.

Clinic openings and closings / Driving forces / Lab tests and clinics / Retail clinics / Strategic initiatives / Walk-in clinics — No Comments
6
Jul 10

Emerging retail clinic models: Zoom, zoom

We’re somewhat embarrassed to say we’ve never heard of ZoomCare until last Thursday.

ZoomCare, a cluster of 4 (soon to be 6) clinics in & around Portland, Oregon, is a mixed-clinician (MDs and PAs) model that

  • has a clear, crisp, 6-point* value proposition,
  • is not Rx hosted, retailer-hosted, or hospital-hosted,
  • fills treatment-related scripts & does labs on-site in its clinics
  • does not focus on employed populations**, and
  • alludes to a plan to build out its own network of care providers beyond ZoomCare’s walls.

*ZoomCare’s homepage does indicate EIGHT things they would like you to know about them – but at least one of those extra items is a bit misleading. Number 8 says they offer “online help 7 days a week”, but that online help consists of enabling you to make an appointment for a conventional clinic visit during their regular business hours. Online scheduling can be very helpful – but there is no teleclinician availability for off-hours issues at ZoomCare.

** while ZoomCare makes no specific pitch to employers at its website, one of its testimonials suggests just the kind of thing the ZoomCare team would certainly not mind taking place all over Oregon….

….I just wanted to say again how much I appreciate the service that you are offering at ZoomCare. I will be sending an email to the president and the CEO of New Seasons Market (my employer) to let them know about you guys. I think that ZoomCare is exactly the thing the majority of our employees need in terms of health care. I hope that I can help you with some referrals….

Clinic openings and closings / MinuteClinic / Take Care Health / Target / The Little Clinic / Walmart — No Comments
4
Jun 10

Target Plans More Clinics

While there’s been a ripple of new-clinic-opening activity by Walmart and regional hospitals over the past several months, the “majors” (outside of The Little Clinic) have been fairly quiet, tweaking hours and service offerings here & there. (We think of the majors as MinuteClinic, Take Care Health, The Little Clinic, RediClinic, Walmart, and Target – major in terms of their pre-established retail presence and/or the fanfare with which they entered the retail clinics business.)

So it’s of some note that Target announced in yesterday’s Chain Drug Review that they would open eight new clinics in September 2010. CDR’s Russell Redman announced that Target would open three stores in Palm Beach FL and five in Chicago.

Clinic openings and closings / Driving forces — No Comments
1
Jun 10

Regional 911 Tests Health System Triage

Louisville KY Metro Emergency Medical Services is testing a simple idea with large potential: screen 911 calls for cases requiring clinical support, then, if indicated, route callers to treatment appropriate for their situation.

Here’s the story in USA Today (6/1/10)

No direct mention of use of retail clinics in the Louisville KY area, but we can imagine situations in which they might be brought to bear.

Clinic openings and closings / Retail clinics — Comments Off
10
May 10

Giant Eagle Adds Clinics

Large midwest regional grocer Giant Eagle opened a retail clinic in Lyndhurst, Ohio last Thursday, reports the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

Giant Eagle adds walk-in clinics staffed by University Hospital nurse practitioners (5/5/10)

University Hospitals’ first FastCare clinic, opening inside the Legacy Village Giant Eagle on Thursday morning, will be staffed with UH nurse practitioners who can diagnose and treat basic ailments ranging from strep throat to bladder infections.

Congrats to Giant Eagle and to University Hospitals, but we feel obliged to note that while they have done a nice job with their media releases, neither has backed their clinic opening with easy-to-locate information about WHERE the clinic actually IS, WHEN it is open, or HOW to contact them.

Here’s the address of the University’s page for the clinic: http://www.uhhospitals.org/LocateaUHFacility/tabid/848/Default.aspx

As of 5/6/10, Giant Eagle does not have a page with the clinic’s location info.

Giant Eagle is host to another clinic, in Morgantown West Virginia. Here’s their page for that location: http://www.gianteagle.com/Article.aspx?cntid=207224

{sigh}

Allow us to hook you up:

Mon General FastCare

Clinic openings and closings / Driving forces / Opinion/commentary/analysis — Comments Off
3
May 10

In Wake of Health Reform, More Retail Clinics?

Most definitely,according to readers of Health Care Design magazine (4/19/10).

As much is also suggested in this story in the Houston Business Journal (Kroger Swallows Bitter Pill, Closes In-Store Clinics (4/30/10). While the story dwells on the April closure of Houston-area Little Clinics, it also notes

….the medical clinic market in Houston has continued to grow in recent years.

In 2008, there were 43 retail medical clinics in Houston and that number increased to 51 by the end of 2009….

and goes on to note that all of the major clinics operators have multiple locations in and around Houston.

Clinic openings and closings / Driving forces / Employers and retail clinics / MinuteClinic / Onsite clinics / Opinion/commentary/analysis / Retail clinics — Comments Off
26
Apr 10

Leading Retail Clinic Operators and Employers: What Are They Up To?

We applaud Memphis Business Group on Health for posting a comment & link to Workforce Magazine’s February article on clinics (Work-Site Clinics Gaining Favor Over Retail Clinics, 4/25/10). However, we’re concerned that their blog’s editor may have misconstrued the clinics’ driving impulse.

Worksite Clinics Gain Favor As Retail Sites Lag, written by the invariably astute Jeremy Smerd, is good stuff, laying out a detailed picture of industry trends, and the rising importance in industry leaders’ business models of services specifically tailored to the needs of employers We liked it a lot, & posted our own thoughts on the piece back in March.

Memphis Business Group finds clinics are “focused on cutting employee and employer costs”. We’d urge – strongly urge – their readers to consider that clinics are focused on providing basic services that help keep people healthy, help to maintain their level of functioning health. Cost management can be a happy result of that focus.

We feel there’s a difference in that distinction, so let’s restate it one more time, with feeling. The impetus, the organizing principle, is “help people with routine non-emergency health services”, not “cut costs, then see if we can keep people healthy”. The clinics – and the firms that have intentionally incorporated them in their health strategies – are investing in their populations’ health. It seems unlikely to us that most of them have first trimmed their budget, then chosen what health services to retain.

Consider yourself which starting point is likelier to produce long-term sustainable results….

Clinic openings and closings / Driving forces / Opinion/commentary/analysis / Retail clinics — Comments Off
20
Apr 10

A Tidal Wave of Retail Clinic Openings…Is Coming…?

So one would gather from examining the wind patterns of the recent flurry of news stories and media releases from clinics industry leaders on the topic. Most of these are fueled by the speculation that the recently passed federal health legislation will generate a significant surge in demand for clinic services.

The latest entries reached the street yesterday afternoon. The first essentially summarized previous stories on MinuteClinic’s expansion plans. The Wall Street Journal titled it CVS Caremark May Have A Retail Clinic Advantage (4/21/10):

CVS Caremark Corp. (CVS) may have an edge in what could be the next wave of expansion for retail clinics: its pharmacy benefit manager business.

The company, which owns about 500 MinuteClinics, said it plans to double the number of those clinics in five years, and is developing new ways to integrate MinuteClinic with its PBM coverage, including voucher programs for flu shots and biometric screening services….

And Healthcare Design Magazine’s online edition weighed in with a survey: Healthcare Reform’s Effect on Retail Clinics (4/19/10) in which 75% of respondents are reported responding in the affirmative to this question:

With the passage of healthcare reform, do you think there is going to be a change in the presence of retail clinics?

And then there is this much-retweeted post at New America Foundation’s blog titled The New Health Dialogue (April 16,2010). An excerpt (with our emphases):

Timing, convenience, workplace pressures and transport are reasons that even insured people end up in emergency rooms — which are not a good place to be taking care of chronic disease. (For a very good update on why ERs are not good places to take care of chronic disease — and why the strain on them may grow during health reform implementation, read Tim Noah’s piece this week in Slate.)

Obviously the retail clinics need watching, monitoring and evaluation as they expand in number and purpose — and our preference is that they don’t become another “silo” or fragmented bit of medical care, but that they get connected in a better more integrated and more accountable delivery system. We need continuity of care, adequate patient education, and coordination with and amongst physicians, whatever the setting. But it’s worth thinking about how clinics can fit into an improved system in the coming years, and what kind of relationships they can form with “medical homes” or large group physician practices or “accountable care” groups.

While we are in harmony with regard to the potential purposes and uses of retail clinic providers in a more integrated – and mostly “open-integrated” health system, we have made mild contrarian noises regarding the likelihood of an explosion in numbers of retail clinics in previous posts, and generally feel that while the new law will benefit the clinics industry, it will likely do so in less direct ways. We hope to identify some of those ways in posts to come.

← Older Entries