From Michael Howe, former MinuteClinic CEO, in this 4/20/10 blog post: The Intersection of Retail and Health Care.
Howe is strongest on the essential organizing principle of the disruptive innovation that is retail clinics, and the merits of fresh leadership from outside the healthcare industry:
“what may be novel to health care companies is their need to take the service principles from consumer-focused organizations — managing customers’ expectations and experiences, for instance, and conducting consumer research — and apply them to their operations. “
Established health care leaders must look outside the industry to understand how to adapt to this new reality.
However, his corporate-y recap of retail clinics present & future does strike some off-notes. For example, ” WebMD, DestinationRx, and other online resources” have hardly “created” “informed, intelligent and engaged” consumers – though they certainly supported the take-charge efforts of many who fit that description. Procter & Gamble attorneys are almost certainly cringing at Howe’s brisk assertion that P&G “will begin providing health care services” via its MD VIP concierge network; to the ears of attorneys general in most if not all jurisdictions that would sound quite like the corporate provision of health care, something off-limits in most places.
Further, while they certainly enjoy ease & convenience of routine non-emergency care when they need it, with little or no delay, most people are not as sanguine as Mr. Howe imagines about the notion that retail clinics might be “taking over many of the traditional tasks of the private physician’s practice”, in ways “requiring far less direct interaction with physicians”.
Finally, few physicians are likely to cheer Howe’s insinuation that they have been making like motor-vehicle clerks, and simply “must become educators, coaches and advisers who cater their services to the unique circumstances and demands of individual patients”, as if there have not been barriers other than retail enlightenment to keep them from performing their roles more in keeping with their abilities and training.
There’s lots to cheer in the emerging shape of retail health services, and Howe’s leadership has been indispensible to the success not only of MinuteClinic’s particular approach but to the early successes of the industry overall. We’d just underscore that the book on retail clinics not only hasn’t been completed; – the introduction is still in draft stage.
While we’re thumbing through HBR, though, we should note that “Megatrend” #8 in the Review’s Megatrends in Global Health Care (published 4/21(?)/10) is “Non-MDs Providing Care“
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….