Content about Health care

Take Care Health Systems, which is owned by Walgreens, has formed a clinical collaboration with Community Health Network to improve access to care for patients throughout central Indiana.

Shifting patients away from hospital emergency rooms and into retail-based and urgent care walk-in clinics can significantly lower healthcare costs, improve access to care and reduce the impact of such chronic diseases as diabetes and hyperlipidemia, two health benefits experts asserted in a recent online presentation.

CVS Caremark’s MinuteClinic and Barnabas Health in New Jersey have signed a clinical collaboration to enhance access to healthcare services in Monmouth and Ocean counties.

Opponents of health reform are usually quick to make comparisons between our nation’s healthcare system and that of the rest of the world. Americans, they argue, enjoy the most advanced and most effective health care in the world. And forcing the U.S. system to change – either through new, evidence-based government payment incentives, federally mandated quality and cost controls, or through new methods for delivering primary care or making health decisions on behalf of patients – would only jeopardize the patient-doctor relationship and undermine the best healthcare network in the world.

Those opponents of change are wrong, in part because they’re willing to accept the status quo for U.S. health care, which is unsustainable for the simple reason that the nation can’t afford the current fee-for-service health system and its skyrocketing costs. But they’re also wrong because they’re proceeding from a flawed assumption: that our health system is tops among all nations.

Walgreens and BMW Manufacturing on Tuesday celebrated the grand opening of a comprehensive worksite health center on the BMW campus in Spartanburg, S.C.

More than 10% of Americans consider Web-enabled, mobile health apps a part of their health care and key to living long lives, according to a new survey by a division of electronics manufacturer Philips.

A recent survey found a significant increase in the number of U.S. adults who have visited a retail clinic in recent years. The growth is attributed to a rise in the number of clinics nationwide, as well patients’ positive response to the convenience and lower cost of such clinic locations.

The findings come as little surprise and one should expect to see increased usage going forward. Why? Because health care is becoming increasingly consumer-centric as patients not only battle rising health care costs but also a growing shortage of primary care physicians. Patients want — need — convenient, high-quality health care services that are also cost effective. Convenient care clinics are increasingly illustrating the important role they play within the U.S. healthcare system.

With health reform and health cost imperatives driving the need to find alternative, community-based ways to deliver more cost-effective follow-up care, the retail clinic model could be poised for a new round of rapid growth.


A healthcare technology company introduced its latest health kiosk at a consumer-electronics event in New York.

The American Academy of Nurse Practitioners and the American College of Nurse Practitioners will merge the organizations effective in January. With approximately 40,000 members, the new organization, the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, or AANP, will serve as the largest professional membership organization in the country for nurse practitioners of all specialties.

With the nation facing a growing shortage of primary care physicians and some 30 million Americans gaining health insurance in 2014 due to healthcare reform, it is no secret that the nation is grappling with a strained healthcare system. If nurse practitioners are serious about expanding their role in health care they need to speak with one voice.

A new Rand Corp. study examining the impact of retail medical clinics on the receipt of primary medical care found mixed evidence about whether the clinics may disrupt doctor-patient relationships.

American Well, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina and Walgreens' Take Care Health Systems have collaborated to make telehealth services available to thousands of BCBSNC employees located throughout North Carolina.