Finding stories inside drugstores and urgent care clinics

By Flickr user Natalie Maynor

It’s shaping up as a busy little week for merger and take-over bids in the retail industry.  Following Simon Properties’ bid for rival mall-operator General Growth, we got word on Wednesday that Walgreen Co. wants to acquire New York’s Duane Reade pharmacy business.

Drugstore chains – especially the one-on-every-corner variety – may not seem like sexy financial fodder.  But given their reach and sway in the realms of retail, pharmaceuticals, health care and insurance, commercial real estate, construction, consumer goods and other business beats, they’re well worth a second look by reporters.

I’d use this news as a peg for a story about burgeoning walk-in care clinics in retail centers, and perhaps expand it to include the business of urgent care centers that have popped up in strip malls nationwide.  I saw one next to a cell phone dealer the other night.  Talk about one-stop.

Walgreen’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Take Care Health Systems, operates walk-in medical clinics at many of Walgreen’s stores nationwide.  Its new acquisition, Duane Reade, also operates these ‘minute clinics’ through a related business unit, DR Walk-in Medical Care.  Other chains – including grocers — do the same, staffing these offices with nurse practitioners and physician assistants to diagnose and treat common ailments like the flu, earaches and sore throats as well as minor injuries.  Some also offer vaccinations, school physicals and other routine services.

They’re convenient for customers and the clinics appear to be very cost-effective.  The outcomes and expense received great reviews last fall in this study for the prestigious Annals of Internal Medicine, wherein the author concluded that the care of mild, routine illness in these “convenience clinics” was as good or better as patients got in doctor’s offices or hospital emergency rooms.  More to the point, the average convenience-clinic cost for treatment of routine illnesses was $66 versus $103 in a doctor’s office and $358 at an emergency room.   Lab tests were cheaper, too.  In light of the stalled debate over health care reform and so many people in our audience losing access to insurance and medical care, a biz feature highlighting the pros and cons of convenience clinics would be a worthy reader service.

Here’s an article about quick clinics popping up at airports and a slightly outdated New England Journal of Medicine piece that illustrates  professional concerns about the clinics – handy when talking with traditional doctors’ offices about the new competition.

Urgent care clinics which address more complex medical matters also are part of a growth industry.  The online trade journal Immediate Care Business is a gold mine of information on this industry, with articles and news about challenges and trends, a timely blog and a downloadable media kit.  Of particular interest are the entries about the financial and operating end of the business, rather than the medical issues.

The DC-based Center for Studying Health System Change may be a good source of survey data and other measurements as well as expert commentary.

Planning ahead: Here’s a look at major economic releases and other events expected the week of Feb. 22:

Feb. 23: Conference board consumer confidence

Feb. 24: Census Bureau new home sales

Feb. 25: Census Bureau durable goods orders

Feb. 26: National Association of Realtors new home sales