First....Look at Moore go....First of these in the entire state

Don't have any kids so I'm wondering if those of you them would take them to this sort of place...I'm one who thinks the nurses actually do most of the work in a doctors office anyway and wouldn't be too concerned about this type of place for minor ailments

Thoughts?

By Jim Stafford
Business Writer

MOORE — The health care alternatives expanded Wednesday beyond a scheduled doctor's appointment or a visit to the emergency room for customers who walked into the CVS Pharmacy at 1040 SW 19 in Moore.

The state's first MinuteClinic opened in the pharmacy, offering walk-up medical care for a limited menu of health care conditions to the metro area population. The clinic is the first of seven planned by MinuteClinic in Oklahoma City area CVS Pharmacies, said Michael Howe, the chief executive officer of the Minneapolis-based health care clinics.

For the price of an insurance co-pay or an average of $59 for a cash-paying patient visit, the clinic offers treatment by nurse practitioners who are trained to diagnose, treat and write prescriptions for common family illnesses such as strep throat and ear, eye, sinus, bladder and bronchial infections.

A subsidiary of CVS, MinuteClinic operates 240 retail clinics — which it calls "health care centers” — around the nation, the first opening seven years ago. MinuteClinics already have seen more than a million patients, Howe said.

"We represent about half the retail clinics around the country,” Howe said. "It's an access point to simple, common family ailments that consumers absolutely love once they try it. We have an exceptional customer satisfaction rate.”

The MinuteClinics in Oklahoma are operated under a strategic alliance with Integris Health, which provides the clinics' medical director.

The nurse practitioners who staff the clinics all operate under the authority of collaborating physicians, which permits them to write prescriptions for patients. About three nurse practitioners are employed at each clinic, Howe said.

Manager of operations for Oklahoma City is Cheryl Hooper, a nurse practitioner who previously worked for the Veterans Administration.

The Moore clinic features two patients' rooms and uses about 185 square feet of space in the pharmacy. It is open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.

"We will probably see some mothers with children who can't take off work and need to come in after hours because we're open until 8 in the evening and it's convenient,” Hooper said. "It's probably going to be people who don't want to take off work and can't take off work.”

MinuteClinic is an "in-network” health care provider for many insurance plans, including Aetna, Assurant Health, Medicare and a host of preferred provider plans.

Two nurse practitioners staffed the clinic on opening day, although by noon they had yet to see their first patient. That will change. The average MinuteClinic sees about 30 patients per day, a spokeswoman said.

MinuteClinic has served as a template for copycat clinics, including Quick Clinic, which opened several locations earlier this year but quickly closed when financing did not materialize, founder Fred Minter said.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. plans to open 400 clinics nationwide in its retail stores and already operates two in Oklahoma, one each in Owasso and Broken Arrow.

The concept of walk-in health care provided by nurse practitioners challenges the traditional model of medical care offered by physician-staffed clinics.

But for what the clinics offer in convenience, they lack in scope of service, medical training and in their mission, said Dr. James Dixson, president of Mercy Health Networks, which operates seven clinics in the Oklahoma City area.

"Every individual needs to have a physician they can call their primary physician, who knows their problems and knows their family,” Dixson said. "And that is not what you are going to find in these kind of operations.

"They try to limit their costs, so they are going to limit their services. Quality of care is an issue I would worry about if I were a consumer.”

However, Howe said MinuteClinic has received accreditation by a medical accreditation organization that looks at quality of care at hospitals, clinics and ambulatory centers. The clinics use electronic records for every patient and treatment step, he said.

"We took that (electronic) system a step further and actually imbedded the best practice treatment guidelines for each of the conditions we treat into the medical record protocol,” Howe said. "So, what we have done is we have created a decision support tool for the practitioner to ensure the highest level of care is delivered in the clinic.”