Two weeks ago, Richard Scott, the managing editor of Case in Point magazine, attended a conference in Mt. Laurel, N.J., devoted to the burgeoning topic of on-site retail and employee clinics. The conference was engineered by AMCP Horizons LLC. In this week’s version of Across My Desk, he shares some highlights from this young but exciting trend in health care.
What to call them? Retail clinics? Convenient care clinics? MinuteClinics? These and other names were thrown around the auditorium at a conference I attended on retail and employee clinics two weeks ago in a small town in southern New Jersey. The name of the conference offers a generic and well-suited answer to this question. But it is the second half of the conference’s title that is more striking: It infers the potential and power for a reconfiguring of an industry, as well as the ambivalence surrounding this new, albeit rapidly emerging, trend. Retail and Employee On-Site Clinics: Flash in the Pan or Big Bang? goes the name of the conference. And the more one learns about this topic, the more it is clear that the question is poignant.
On-Site clinics are, simply put, “small healthcare facilities located in convenient, accessible settings,” as Tine Hansen-Turton describes them. These clinics are normally staffed by a nurse practitioner and intended to provide non-emergency care.
Ms. Hansen-Turton is the executive director of the Convenient Care Association (CCA), an organization that came into being in 2006. Its stated mission is to “strengthen and advance the Convenient Care model of health care.” Some 900 on-site clinics are currently in operation in sites such as drug stores and supermarkets across the country. The CCA projects that total number to reach close to 1,600 by the end of this year alone. That 78 percent growth arrives on the heels of a more staggering figure: Between 2006 and 2007, the number of on-site clinics exploded by about 400 percent.
The question now seems to be: Can this expansion continue? It is impossible to answer, but a look at the services that these clinics provide can go a long way toward formulating an accurate glimpse into whether the trend can endure.
According to Ms. Hansen-Turton, on-site clinics offer a trifold set of services that can set it as a bedrock in the healthcare delivery system: They are accessible, they are affordable and they perform at a high quality level. With the current shortage of primary care physicians and a very high positive patient-response rate, on-site clinics have the potential to resound like a big bang across the healthcare sector.
All of this has been said without a mention of on-site employee clinics, an equally formidable movement toward increased access and reduced costs. With major companies setting up on-site clinics for their employees’ use, and with positive results coming in, it does not appear this development is at risk of vanishing.
So, a flash in the pan or a big bang? It may be too early to say. But don’t be surprised if you find yourself strolling down the aisle of your local supermarket when you want to receive your next flu shot. (To find out more about this exciting trend, the CCA’s website is a good place to start. If you would like to share an experience with on-site clinics, please e-mail Anne Llewellyn at allewellyn@contexomedia.com. Also, stay tuned for a much more extensive look at this topic in the October issue of Case in Point magazine.)
Have a great week!
Anne Llewellyn, RN-BC, MS, BHSA, CCM, CRRN
Editor-in-Chief of Across My Desk, Case in Point magazine, and the Case Management Resource Guide
allewellyn@dorlandhealth.com
