In-store Clinics: It's a new idea.

In-store clinics are a new model of primary care system. Typically as a kiosk in a big chained drugstore, like CVS Pharmacy, staffed by a nurse practitioner or a physician assistant, it provides relatively inexpensive ($59-110), convenient services (7 days a week, including each evening)--ranging from diagnosis and treatment of common ailments, scheduled vaccinations and other services like rapid pregnant test and flu diagnosis.

Pioneered by MinuteClinic, recently acquired by CVS Pharmacy, this kind of new health care delivery model is increasing in prevalence and scale. In the latest issue of NEJM, an article by Dr. Richard Bohmer, a senior lecturer in business administration at Harvard Business School, talks about this phenomenon. Dr. Bohmer looks this trend as an opportunity, doing good both to the consumers and the physicians for several reasons.

In-store clinics are carefully configured to serve the needs of the less sick. In-store clinics may efficiently provide services to a small slice of the population, freeing up primary care practitioners and emergency rooms to deal with more complex cases, for which they are more appropriately configured.Many health care practitioners may see in-store clinics as a way to improve their patients' access to care, decompress their busy waiting rooms, free them up to spend more time with patients, and serve the uninsured, a group of patients whom they may wish to avoid.

Can this type of health care delivery system be applicable in Taiwan as well? The cost of medical expense is NT$200 per visit in average. The clinic is everywhere, especially in metropolitan areas. The related regulations are much more strict (in Taiwan a health providers other than licensed physicians is not allowed to give a prescription.) It seems impracticable here. But it can still be a precious reference to the management of a high-end clinic.