ALBERT LEA (AP) -- Not too far from its world-renowned Rochester medical center, the Mayo Clinic is testing a new way to deliver health care -- in a shopping mall next to a nail salon.
A lone nurse practitioner staffs the ALMC Express Care clinic in this southern Minnesota town, treating simple ailments from a 262-square-foot kiosk. It amounts to a surprise turnaround in the medical establishment's response to the proliferation of MinuteClinics and similar ventures.
Doctors have previously criticized retail clinics for providing disjointed and possibly unsafe care, but now medical centers are responding to the phenomenon with their own retail clinics as a way to keep existing patients and reach new ones.
Mayo is hoping that the year-old Albert Lea clinic can be a prototype for similar clinics across the Mayo Health System in southern Minnesota, western Wisconsin and northern Iowa. Last week, Mayo officials said they'd open another Mayo Express Care clinic early next year in a Rochester strip mall.
"A couple of years ago, medical centers thought if they ignored (the trend), it would go away," said Tricia Dahl, associate clinic administrator at the Albert Lea Medical Center."But patients tell us this is what they want."
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Other large health care providers are getting into the act. Minneapolis-based Fairview Health Services has opened Fairview Express Care clinics in Coborn's Superstores in Albertville and Elk River, and plans two more in Princeton and Hastings. In Rochester, Olmsted Medical Center opened OMC FastCare at a ShopKo last summer and plans another late this year.
Tom Holets, president of Allina Medical Clinic, owner of 45 primary care clinics in the Twin Cities area, said retail clinics are"clearly not a flash-in-the-pan event." Allina isn't in the business yet, but recently finished a three-year study that concluded"we must be in this marketplace," he said.
Five years after the first MinuteClinic opened in the Twin Cities, 362 outlets have opened in 24 states with a goal of 400 by the end of the year. The no-frills clinics offer a limited menu of services, low prices and walk-in access.
MinuteClinic is now owned by CVS Caremark Corp., the country's biggest provider of prescription drugs.
Target and a host of other chains followed suit with their own retail clinics.
The clinics have "skimmed off simple health conditions that are reimbursed well (and) left primary care clinics with their noses barely above water," said Dr. Loie Lenarz, chief clinical officer at Fairview.
Traditional medical institutions are hoping to bring their own assets to the retail clinic business. At Mayo Express Care, for instance, a nurse practitioner will have access to patient medical records already stored at Mayo.
That could help address one concern about retail clinics among the medical establishment, that they result in fragmented care.
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"We're looking at this as part of a system of care," said Dr. David Herman, who leads the primary care effort at Mayo.
