Wednesday, August 26, 2009  Markets In Everything: Kaiser
Microclinics At 50% of the Cost of a Full-Service Hospital
WIRED.COM -- Kaiser Permanente has long relied on a simple
strategy of building complete, self-sustaining
hospitals—employing 50 doctors or more—in each region it serves.
"It's an efficient model," says Michele Flanagin, Kaiser's vice
president of delivery systems strategy. "It offers one-stop
shopping: pharmacy and radiology and everything you want from
health care in one building." But that approach forces patients
who don't live near a hospital to drive a long way for even the
most routine doctor's appointment.  In 2007, Flanagin and her
colleagues wondered what would happen if, instead of building a
hospital in a new area, Kaiser just leased space in a strip
mall, set up a high tech office, and hired two doctors to staff
it. Thanks to the digitization of records, patients could go to
this "microclinic" for most of their needs and seamlessly
transition to a hospital farther away when necess