As health systems build their retail health strategies, they come to face a big question: Where should they locate their clinics?
Hiten Patel, managing director with the Washington, D.C.-based Advisory Board, wrote about some of the basic questions health systems can ask when deciding on a retail clinic location.
1. Will the location attract the "right" patient demographic? Ensure the location supports the patient population in the clinic's business model.
2. Is there an unmet primary care need in this location? Retail clinics are less likely to succeed if people have ample access to nearby primary care. One reliable indicator of an unmet need for primary care is swelling volumes in nearby emergency departments, according to the report.
3. How are the local demographics and demand expected to change? Health systems will make sounder investments in markets where population is expected to grow rather than decline.
4. What are traffic patterns like? Since proximity and convenience are crucial to consumers' decisions to visit a retail clinic, traffic patterns — down to the smallest of details — are important. "The wrong block, or the wrong side of the street, could mean a meaningful difference in patient volumes," according to the report. Some providers have sought help from specialists in retail traffic pattern analysis, while others try to situate their clinics near "well-run national chains" that rely on casual traffic.
5. Where are the Starbucks — or another national chain — located? That second aforementioned strategy is called the "Starbucks shortcut," according to the report. One health system wanted its retail clinic to target the urban middle class, but an analysis still left it with 10 city blocks to choose a site. They decided to look where all of the Starbucks had been built.
Piggybacking on the site selection expertise of big national chains can make sense. "After all, national chains are also looking at current demographics, population projects, and (most of all) traffic patterns," wrote Mr. Patel. "And retail chains, especially those like Starbucks that are corporate-run rather than franchise-based, are likely to exercise considerable discipline in choosing their locations."
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