Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Wal-Mart to Fix Health Care?

It seems they have a prescription for changing healthcare.

The retailer offered up its information technology expertise to help develop a system for keeping electronic medical records as another means of reducing costs.

Wal-Mart also said that lessons could be learned from health clinics it is opening in dozens of stores around the country, many of which serve uninsured patients who would otherwise go to the emergency room -- a major drain on health care resources.

These clinics that they are talking about are the mini-clinics that I have read about in Business Week. These are smaller clinics that handle non-serious problems for a set fee. So if you have a sore throat you can go here. Then an RN checks you out and prescribes drugs that you can buy at the same pharmacy that these clinincs rent space from. Here is some information about them. I think they are a good idea and they could bring down healthcare costs. I'm waiting for the first one to go public so I can get in when the stock is still cheap.

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