Make Mine McMedicine

From the April 2005 Issue

From The Editor

By Robin Blair, Editor

Linda Hall Whitman is the CEO of a company that’s posing the most attractive, affordable and technology-backed challenge to traditional medicine that I have seen in many moons.

MinuteClinic is, essentially, a walk-in clinic housed in a retail environment—Target and Cub Foods grocery stories in the Twin Cities, to be exact—that treats routine patient ailments in about half the time spent at a typical walk-in clinic, and at about half the cost of a typical physician office visit. Patient complaints such as sore throat, conjunctivitis, ear infection and sinus infection are listed on a big menu board, along with charges ranging from $44 to $48.

MinuteClinic is staffed by nurse practitioners who must hold a four-year bachelor’s degree and a two-year master’s degree, both in nursing, who can prescribe medications with degrees of physician oversight. These nurses are supported big time by information technology, specifically $1 million worth of proprietary software with up-to-date computerized medical guidelines for diagnoses, best practices for treatment of common ailments, a drug interaction database and protocols that ensure consistent service. For example, the software prohibits a nurse from prescribing an antibiotic in the absence of a positive test result. (Want more information? Google “Fortune” and “MinuteClinic” to read Michelle Andrews’ Feb. 1 informative article.)

I love the concept, but not everyone agrees. Andrews quotes Dr. Michael Fleming, a private practitioner and chairman of the American Academy of Family Physicians: “Still, some doctors worry that nurse practitioners will miss subtle symptoms that may indicate a more serious problem. ‘One of the reasons we go through training for so many years is to have an index of suspicions for things that might be something else,’ says family doctor Fleming.”

Really? We’re talking about sore throats and pink eye here, not a heart attack. The last time I went to my PCP with a sore throat, I got six minutes of time and a Z-pack. The last time I went to a local walk-in center—my daring, 15-minute foray away from my HMO—to have a nurse practitioner remove a Mt. Everest size clump of wax from my ear, it cost me more than $280 out-of-pocket. That’ll teach me to suffer in silence—literally—until my PCP reappears on Monday morning.

MinuteClinic is everything I want: accessible, convenient, staffed by professionals, affordable, targeted at routine ailments and in full possession of medical software. I must have a lot of company. MinuteClinic treated more than 70,000 patients last year. Of the total 183,000 patients treated during its five-year history, not one has ever filed a malpractice suit. What’s not to like?

Have VC capital, will travel: MinuteClinic is targeted for expansion to 350 sites in 20 urban areas in the next four years. The company’s leadership is smart: While MinuteClinic provides an affordable consumer service, the company targets insurers and large self-insured employers directly, instead of patients. Andrews says companies such as Best Buy and General Mills encourage their employees to use the service, and St. Jude Medical, a St. Paul-based maker of medical devices, has even reduced employee copays from $20 or $15 down to $10 when they use MinuteClinic. The company figures it will save $20,000 a year in expenses.

I say, bring it on. Oh, and Linda, can I send you directions to Target in Sarasota, Florida?