S. Davidson advises Boston Globe on in-store medical clinics
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Stephen Davidson |
The Boston Globe publishes a Letter to the Editor from Boston University School of Management’s Stephen Davidson, Professor of Strategy and Policy Department and Director of the School’s Health Care Management Research Center.
In response to the article “"In-store healthcare wins state approval," from January 10, 2008, Prof. Davidson writes:
The Public Health Council's approval of the proposal to allow CVS to operate store-based medical clinics may have been reasonable, but the concerns raised during the council's extended deliberations remain ("In-store healthcare wins state approval," Page A1, Jan. 10). These facilities may ease access problems for some, but no good, independent data exist from other states where similar facilities have been operating to show what the effects are likely to be.
What will happen when patients appear at a site with illnesses that are more serious than the nurse practitioners can treat? (CVS says staff are trained to recognize those conditions and to refer patients elsewhere.) How many patients will develop avoidable drug interactions because CVS clinic staff will not have access to patients' prior medical records? If things do go wrong, who is responsible - the nurse practitioner, CVS, or the patient's regular doctor? Will hospital emergency departments see fewer patients needing routine care, as hoped, or will the services provided in the CVS clinics be for conditions that would have disappeared by morning? Finally, how will CVS management and clinical staff compensate if these facilities fail to generate the expected profits?
Since the first clinics will not open until fall, the state has time to plan good studies to answer these and other important questions.
STEPHEN M. DAVIDSON
Professor, Boston University School of Management
Boston
See letter online
