Archive for retail healthcare
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MedTouch, the leading provider of interactive, web-based solutions for healthcare, joins forces with Paquin Healthcare Companies, the national leader in Retail Healthcare solutions, to explore the emerging market forces of online consumer health research.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Oct 22, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) — MedTouch, the leading provider of interactive, web-based solutions for healthcare organizations, announced a special webinar entitled A Day in the Life of an Online Healthcare Traveler which focuses on demystifying the ways consumers use the Internet for health research and proposing how hospitals can capture a greater share of this interest through innovative marketing and commerce strategies.
“Health systems need to realize that they cannot live on reimbursements alone,” said Paul Griffiths CEO of MedTouch. “Since the gyrations in the global markets have crippled the bond market, investment returns, and charitable giving, it is more critical than ever that hospitals find alternative sources of revenue and think outside confines of traditional business models.
“Online retail healthcare is a tremendous, untapped revenue stream for hospitals. But most important of all, if you don’t develop online marketing and loyalty programs today, you can’t depend on the volume you need tomorrow.”
“The Retail Healthcare marketplace is currently estimated to be 500 billion in revenues annually and projected to be one trillion within five years,” states Tony Paquin, CEO, of Paquin Healthcare. “The individual empowered consumer will be the key to substantive change in healthcare over the long term.”
This webinar is the first step in a new partnership between MedTouch and Paquin Healthcare, also announced today, to ensure hospitals and integrated health systems capture and retain patients online. Through this collaboration, both companies will provide services and software to clients through bundled, turnkey offerings, turning existing hospital sites into new sources of income and helping hospitals position themselves as the online home for local healthcare consumers.
About MedTouch
MedTouch delivers web intelligence for healthcare. Whether delivering web sites, online marketing programs, or empowered technology with provable ROI, MedTouch is dedicated to shamelessly promoting its clients’ success. Those clients include nationally-ranked academic medical centers, community hospitals, rehabilitation facilities, health plans, and health care-related not-for-profits.
About Paquin Healthcare
Paquin Healthcare Companies is pioneering the development of distribution channels for healthcare-based retail products and services. Working in conjunction with major hospitals and other professional healthcare organizations nationwide, Paquin Healthcare is the nation’s leading provider of integrated and customized solutions for the implementation of healthcare retail strategies.
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More Retail Health News: Walgreens Enters CVS Market here in Masssachusetts
Posted by: | CommentsFrom the Boston Globe, Walgreens looks to open retail clinics in Mass:
A Take Care spokeswoman, Lauren Tierney, said yesterday that the company expects to open the first of its Bay State clinics in the fall. The company currently operates 173 clinics in 14 states and intends to have 400 running nationwide by the end of the year.
Tierney said the company was attracted to Massachusetts, in part, because of the state’s drive toward near-universal health coverage.
“We applaud the progressive efforts Massachusetts has taken to cover more lives in the state,” Tierney said. “And we hope that Take Care health clinics can provide more access points to get patients into the system.”
This is the quote that has me scratching my head. Why is universal health coverage good for a retail clinic outfit? Shouldn’t it be the opposite — that, as previously posted, 50%+ of the walk-in care has no insurance, thus you’d go where no other alternatives exist? Take Care was acquired last year after building about 100 stores and, I think, Walgreens was right to see the opportunity.
I suspect the play here is less the coverage for healthcare, but more the pharmacy, for which any health plan can provide legitimate, cost-savings benefits. After all, Walgreens (and CVS) are in the pharmacy business. This after Walgreens targets 7,000 stores nationwide and Rite-Aid buys up Brooks. If you’re in the Northeast, you know that the CVS store is as ubiquitous as Starbucks, but that won’t even match the super-chains:
Although the drugstore chains can’t beat Wal-Mart Stores Inc. or Target Corp. on price for health and beauty aids or other items, they are superior on convenience, Mr. Hertel said. “Consumers get choices, pricing, hours, and a lot of the benefits that go with 24-hour access nationwide to a prescription system,” he said.
Ah, it’s store placement — that’s how the drugstores will compete.
UPDATED:
So this tells me that Walgreens’ or CVS’ or Rite-Aid’s comparative advantage lies in:
- Being open after hours to suggest they are “always open”
- Locating themselves fractionally closer to you than the big box (Wal-mart, Target) retailers
Therefore, population density and socio-economic makeup is critical to the drugstore chain’s survival as they aren’t as efficient as the big boxes at logistics. Since they have to charge higher prices for that inefficiency, they can make it up on smaller, more profitable sales. (Instead of the CostCo size tube of… well, never mind.)
Hmmm. If I owned a drugstore chain, I’d try opening a store next to an ER in a well-heeled zip code to see if it out-performed one with a clinic in it…
What if Wal-Mart Ran Your Hospital?
Posted by: | CommentsToday, I attended a talk by Alicia Ledlie, Senior Director, Health Business Development of Wal-Mart Stores, about the future of retail clinic care within the largest retailer on the planet.
Wal-Mart has already changed healthcare for low-income, underinsured Americans by lowering the cost of generic prescriptions to $4 — and, by extension, a larger population than their customer base thanks to Target and competitors joining in. The low-cost, “pass the savings on” mentality extends to their philosophy of clinic care — walk-in costs are $40-60 a pop, and include some basic testing services.
Here’s what Wal-Mart is doing right with healthcare:
1. Extended hours: they are open 8am to 8pm M-F and also on weekends from 9 to 5. That’s about twice the hours of an average doctor’s office.
2. Access to care: 55% of their population served by these clinics have no insurance. (Compared to about 40% for the average walk-in clinic.) This should be a measurable community benefit as it removes a strain on the ER, where visits run $1,000 or more and are often written off by hospitals anyway.
3. Fixed costs: by posting fees upfront, they reduce the likelihood that a potential patient won’t just walk away. As Ms. Ledlie says, “If you have $50 in your pocket and it costs $60, you won’t go.” A greater proportion of the community can afford to receive care and therefore elects for care.
Now none of these are unique to Wal-Mart, except for maybe the incredible access of retail space. But with their scale, Wal-Mart can offer a few more things. Through an innovative partnership model, Wal-Mart becomes a landlord to a hospital-sponsored tenant — either a direct offshoot of your hospital or a third-party relationship that refers into the hospital system.
Also, they’re proving eClinicalWorks as an EMR for the patients. (I guess that makes it a PHR, but go with me here.) Without the baggage of a system from the 70’s, they can roll-over a real, hard-ROI EMR platform… for those 130 million customers that pass through their doors.
What are you doing to make life easier for your patients that Wal-Mart can’t do better, cheaper, or faster nation-wide?
