Health care businesses take off at airports
Health care clinics are taking off at airports around the country.
— -- Reluctant to deal with the hassles of airport security, sales executive Michael D'Souza generally packs the syringes he needs for his daily medication in a bag that he checks when he travels.
The strategy backfired for the Toronto resident recently when he needed the medication while he was stuck during a four-hour delay at Newark Liberty. D'Souza found new needles when an airport customer service rep told him about a pharmacy that opened late last year in Terminal C.
"I don't think I've ever seen a pharmacy at an airport," he says. "But I thought: What a good idea. People are traveling sick all the time."
Pharmacies and walk-in health clinics are opening at more airports in the USA, hoping to capture a sizable portion of travelers and airport employees who want access to basic primary health care and to fill their prescriptions at the last minute.
Such facilities are common at large foreign airports, but domestic airports have mostly focused on services that cater to travelers' immediate needs. Several entrepreneurs are betting that there's pent-up demand for such services at airports in the USA.
While similar to primary care physician offices, walk-in clinics generally focus on a limited range of medical services and medications. Nurse practitioners typically deliver the services.
Harmony Pharmacy, which launched at Newark Liberty late last year, will open another airport shop at the much-anticipated JetBlue Terminal 5 at New York's John F. Kennedy airport in September.
AeroClinic, which runs a walk-in clinic at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta, will open its second branch at Philadelphia International in the spring.
Solantic, which operates walk-in clinics at several Wal-Marts, will expand into the airport market by opening at Orlando International later this year. Atlanta-based AirportMD opens its first store in Miami next month, followed by another in Minneapolis in the fall.
"Airports lend themselves as an ideal market for retail-based care because (there are) a lot of people in between flights or who have downtime," says Tine Hansen-Turton, executive director of the Convenient Care Association, a trade group for retail walk-in clinics. "You also have employers who have hours not conducive to going to primary care providers."
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