In the News
County Gets Mixed Results on Annual State Rankings
Delaware County Daily Times
John Kopp (Rose spoke with him and is quoted multiple times in the article)
How Healthy is Your County?
Philly.com's The Public's Health Blog
Janet Golden, PhD, Professor of History, Rutgers University-Camden
How Health are PA Residents?
Wearecentralpa.com
Survey: Kent County Unhealthiest in Delaware
Delawareonline.com
A Q&A with Tine Hansen-Turton of Convenient Care Association
Philadelphia Business Journal - John George, Senior Reporter
Convenient Care Association was formed in 2006 to give a voice to the growing number of retail-based health clinics, the group had 75 potential members. Today, the number of retail clinics across the country has swelled to about 1,450. Tine Hansen-Turton, the association's president as well as CEO of the National Nursing Centers Consortium, talked recently with Philadelphia Business Journal Senior Reporter John George about the retail-health clinic industry's growing niche in the health-care industry.
Q. How has the industry evolved since the association was formed?
I've been in health care for 20 years. This is probably the first model we've seen in the country where consumers took such a liking to it early on. This really is the consumer-driven model. The first couple of years it was primarily a cash model. Consumers pushed the insurers [to cover care at the clinics]. Today there's not an insurer that doesn't contract with these clinics. The clinics are keeping people out of emergency rooms when they can't see their family doctors. ... We're at almost 1,450 clinics now and we expect that number to double over the next five years.
Read the rest of the interview here.
Why your local ER may get a lot less crowded
Entrepreneurs, retailers join docs and hospitals in fast health-care business
Philadelphia Business Journal - John George, Senior Reporter
Less than a decade ago, most people in need of immediate medical attention — after breaking an arm playing football or suffering an asthma attack in the night or, perhaps, burning themselves on the stove — headed straight to a hospital emergency room.
It's what people did, but times have changed.
While the area's 50-plus emergency departments are still an option, so are scores of urgent-care centers and health clinics at retail outlets such as pharmacies, supermarkets and malls.
An exact number of such health centers is difficult to nail down, but the region's largest health insurer, Independence Blue Cross (IBC), lists 116 urgent-care centers and health clinics in southeastern Pennsylvania, South Jersey and northern Delaware.
Read the rest of the article here