18
Clinical Integration & ACOs
U
rgent care centers' and retail health clinics' popularity has explod-
ed as of late, with patients rushing to the outpatient care sites in
droves.
For instance, on the urgent care side, adults under 30 are less likely to visit a pri-
mary care physician than an urgent care clinic, according to a report by Vitals,
an online resource to help patients make informed decisions about their care.
Use of retail health clinics has also grown recently, as 27 percent of surveyed
adults said they have used either walk-in retail clinics or work-based clinics
to receive medical care — up drastically from just 7 percent in 2008, a 2013
Harris Interactive/HealthDay poll found.
These alternative care sites aren't just becoming more popular with patients:
Hospitals and health systems are beginning to consider getting their toes wet
in one or both of the models.
"Urgent care and retail health strategy should be considered together…as
part of your primary care or population health management strategy," says
Ellis "Mac" Knight, MD, CMO and senior vice president overseeing Coker
Group's hospital operations and strategic services team. "As more and more
systems get into the population health management era and try to build
their primary care platform to do that, both retail medicine and urgent care
should be considered as part of that whole endeavor."
Stretching the
Primary Care
Continuum:
