This panel will focus on in-store clinics, and mobile devices in health care

On the panel is Michael Howe, CEO MinuteClinic, Delmer Dukjhart from Technology Center, Cisco & Don Jones, VP Healthcare, Qualcom

Intro from Richard Adler, IFTF—about 100 clinics around the country, small companies but big partners. Most NP run, no doc on site, but some experimenting with that problem. Lots of encouraging data presented about why these clinics are good in terms of cost and convenience. Of course one question is how much $$ per sq. ft can these clinics generate.

Next steps for these clinics? Video visit booth, with only pharmacy tech or EMT tech, remote contact to clinicians. CHCF has funded Mercer to create this.

Mobile health applications….several applications all built on growth in use of cell phones. Now 75% of adults have a cell phone (more than 60% of those in their cellphones) 8% of cell phones in US are smart phone. NOT just a US phenomenon 25% of worlds pop use them, and several other companies use them Italy’s cell phone penetration is 108%. China has 335m cell phones (25%). Lots of progress in medical devices, sensor arm bands, life shirt, etc, etc (Check out medgadget for more of all this). Two new ones are 3G doctor (apparently coming in the UK) and the VeriChip (My note—it is not far out….it already exists and John Hamalka has already got one).

Michael Howe, CEO MinuteClinic. Started because the founder was pissed off at having to wait 3 hours for an urgent care clinic visit for his kid’s ear infection, brought in retail experience (Michael). Have gone from 19 clinics to 84 clinics. Will have 250 clinics by end of years and going to 1000 clinics by end of 2008. It’s meant for binary decisions on confirmations of diagnosis and simple treatment. Cornerstone of the system is an EMR that functions like a pre-flight check list for a pilot. Can also change the algorithm/care for all clinics. Can provide summary of visit back to PCP if they can accept it.

Don Jones; “it’s very slow to drag that health care mule through the water”….but the fun part of his job is remote glucose monitoring, etc.

Del Dukjhart: So much synergy between wireless devices, clinics and the network. Lots of places where telepresence can get access to good quality health care. He thinks technology can solve many of the problems. Telepresence needs to get to be easier to use, that’s the big rock.

Michael—What’s the impact on PCPs? (my question)….there hasn’t been an impact on primary care docs. There’s resistance at first, but then they work as a complement, and then within a year or so they start giving referrals to their clinics. This is about making access and convenience for patients….it also means that patients will get access to maintenance care more easily. He thinks that the primary care doc is a coach who’ll uses resources like MinuteClinic