Retail Medical Clinics Offer Quality Care: Study
Sept. 1 -- MONDAY, Aug. 31 (HealthDay News) -- Walk-in retail clinics staffed by nurse practitioners provide high-quality care for routine illnesses, a new study has found.
Writing in the Sept. 1 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, study author Dr. Ateev Mehrotra said that retail clinics -- which are typically staffed by nurse practitioners and found in drug stores and other retail chain stores such as Target and Wal-Mart -- provide a good standard of care for sore throat, ear infections and urinary tract infections. Mehrotra is an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and a policy analyst at Rand Health.
"I'm interested in how we deliver new forms of health care," said Mehrotra, who compared data from retail clinics, doctors' offices, urgent care centers and hospital emergency departments. "There's been a lot of discussion about the quality and effectiveness of these clinics; I wanted to find out more. From the patients' perspective, their appeal is twofold. They're convenient and they provide significant cost savings."
Retail clinics have become increasingly widespread in recent years. One such operation is CVS's MinuteClinic, the focus of Mehrotra's research. MinuteClinic staffers treat minor illnesses and injuries, and provide vaccinations and various health and wellness services. Customers can walk in without an appointment, and the clinics are open seven days a week. Most visits take no more than 15 minutes, and costs vary from $30 to $110, according to the MinuteClinic Web site.
According to Mehrotra, one-third of Americans live within a 10-minute drive of a retail clinic, and more than 6,000 of these clinics are expected to open across the United States within five years. Surveys of patients who received care at retails clinics have been positive, he added.
Mehrotra's research team analyzed information contained in insurance claims of 2,100 Minnesotans between 2005 and 2006. The study authors chose the three diagnoses because they made up a combined 40 percent of the clinics' caseload.
