We’ve never been clear why retail clinics have not done more experimenting with scheduling. Like MinuteClinics’ new flu scheduler initiative:
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?
6
Jul 10
Health Care as Information Care: View From The Street
Sure, plenty of articles, news blurbs, tweets, and other stuff has been issued about personal health records (I’m blazing a new trail: The Term Doesn’t Need Capitalizing Anymore. You read it here first), but few really acknowledge the primacy of information care in the realm of routine primary care the way this recent Chicago Sun-Times article does:
Health Records In A Snap (7/3/10, immediate access – no registration/subscription required).
We’re not sure reporter Sandra Guy identifies the potential alternative futures perfectly, but she does a more than respectable job:
There’s plenty of room for alternatives between these rather stark choices, and we would have liked to see some of those referenced in this general interest piece. But that’s exactly what enthuses us about this article – it’s a general interest piece that frames the connection between “better” primary care and “better” means of communicating about that care more lucidly than most of its kind.