Collaboration Is Driving Retail Health Growth

We are well underway in a new year, and as I reflect on 2015 and the year ahead, it is clear that this is an exciting time for the retail health industry.

I was recently asked to describe, in one word, the retail health industry in 2015, and I immediately responded with “collaboration.” Collaboration and partnerships were the driving forces behind the industry’s success in 2015, as they helped to position the industry for greater growth and opportunities to provide access to convenient, affordable, high-quality health care in 2016.

We closed 2015 with more than 2000 retail clinics—quite a bit of growth since the end of 2014, when we had approximately 1600 clinics. Accenture released a report at the end of 2015 not only indicating that the retail health industry is booming, but also forecasting that retail clinics will expand across the country at a rapid rate. According to the report, the number of clinics will reach an astounding 3000 by 2017.

The growth of retail clinics is exciting because more retail clinics will not only improve access to health care, but also create new opportunities for retail health to capitalize on cutting-edge innovations in health care technology and partnerships that will improve patient care.

With the surge in partnerships in 2015, there are now well over 100 hospital and health systems that have partnered with retail clinics. The partnerships between retail clinics and hospitals and health systems allow for the expansion of access to care, service expansion opportunities such as chronic disease management and maintenance, enhanced quality monitoring and improvement programs, ongoing support of continuity of care, and compliance with the Affordable Care Act. This is a real testament to the role of retail clinics and the value they bring to the health care ecosystem.

With a continued focus on collaboration and partnerships, the Convenient Care Association is pleased to partner withPharmacy Timesfor the second annualConvenient Healthcare and Pharmacy Collaborative (CHPC), which will be heldJuly 19-21, 2016, at the Hilton Orlando Bonnet Creek Resort inOrlando, Florida. This conference is a unique event that brings together the providers at the heart of retail health—nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and pharmacists—to network and discuss best practices to improve patient outcomes and further revolutionize health care delivery through innovative and impactful collaboration.

I look forward to seeing you all at CHPC and thank you for all that you do!

Tine Hansen-Turton serves as the founding executive director for the Convenient Care Association (CCA), the national trade association for the over 2,000 private-sector retail clinics industry, which serves millions of people with basic health care services across the country, and has been coined by Harvard professor Clayton Christensen as a “disruptive health innovation.” She assists CCA with business and programmatic strategy, development, coordination and implementation, as well as with policy development and state and national advocacy.