[NPInfo] Advance Web blog, and retail clinics

[Carla Anderson]

Take Care is in the news, and with NP week, as well. But also, an NP has started a consulting service for the retail clinics. Good for him.
   
  
Somebody Loves You 
November 13, 2007 10:39 AM by S_lebo   
   Hopefully you're able to take a few minutes to toast yourself this week. Even better, maybe your facility or a few of your patients have saluted you in honor of National NP Week. I have an appointment with my NP on Thursday, and I plan on expressing some extra thanks for her diligent care over the years.   This week's celebrations spurred one company to get pretty friendly with an NP courtship of sorts - a fun "We Love NPs" campaign. Take Care Health Systems, one of convenient care clinic parent organizations, is even holding a contest that will award one NP $2,500 as part of the campaign. You can enter the contest by clicking on the "We Love NPs" logo on the Take Care Web site. The winner will be randomly selected from the entries during the week of Dec. 3.
  "For more than 40 years nurse practitioners have served their communities, and now more than ever NPs are recognized as a vital part of the solution to the lack of affordable, accessible, high-quality care in the U.S. healthcare system," Loretta C. Ford, NP, cofounder of the first NP program and pioneer in its development, said in a press release. "Take Care Health Systems is taking a leadership role in recognizing NPs by assimilating nursing leadership into the strategy of its organization and placing NPs at the forefront of the convenient care industry."
  Take Care Health Systems employs 359 nurse practitioners at 85 Take Care Health Clinics across the country now. As more and more retail clinics open, industry executives are vying for the attention of their most important employment resource: nurse practitioners. Take Care hopes to open more than 100 clinics at Walgreens drugstores by the end of 2007 and more than 400 clinics by the end of 2008, so this courtship looks like it will continue. I hope you're feeling the love this week!
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Taking Charge of Retail Health 
November 13, 2007 9:36 AM by Michelle Pronsati   
       Here at ADVANCE, we have been closely watching the convenience care revolution. The development of this business and practice model can be a great thing for nurse practitioners, but only if NPs take an active role in shaping it.
  At ACNP's clinical conference last month, 40 or so NPs attended a session on the retail health revolution. The speaker for the session, Kevin Letz, NP, chose to lead an interactive discussion rather than deliver a lecture. And what an interesting discussion it became! 
  Letz is the CEO of Clinicians Consulting, LLC, which provides consulting services to retail health clinics. He has started his own clinics, called MedSpot, as well.
  About half the NPs in the room already work in retail settings, and the other half indicated they were interested in working in convenient care. Here are some highlights from their comments:
    
   "Salaries are generally competitive with primary care, and I think they will only go up because of competition."   
   "Most of the patients we see don't have a primary care provider, and a lot of them don't have insurance."   
   "I saw 35 patients in a 12-hour shift yesterday."   
   "It feels good to be appreciated. Patients like the quality and convenience my clinic provides."
"A disadvantage is that some clinic setups limit NP scope of practice by virtue of the very specific services they provide." To this Letz remarked: "I think the scope will change as this movement progresses. We have input in that. ... We need to start changing the terminology in these settings to ‘scope of services' so that people don't think these are the limits of what we can do." 

Carla R. Anderson, FNP-C
  Healing Presence Family Practice, PC  
  carla_rayne at yahoo.com
  503 819 9726