Walmart & Healthcare
Innovators Prescription was a fantastic read because it draws on such a breadth of business experience.
When i was thinking about the Kaiser story and the examples given on employee healthcare initiatives, it made perfect sense. Now, it seems Walmart is getting smart:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/11/10/142156478/wal-mart-plans...
I cant think of a better example of a transformation agent in this country, to provide ambulatory and potentially launch disease mgt groups, because of their breadth and cross section of customers. Also, under the new STIC identity program, Walmart could help to launch the EHR with a credential thats trusted, enabling further portability on HIE's.
Last, I think consumers would like the ability to hold a HSA with Walmart and then utilize it for healthcare or necessaries. This could prove to enhance Walmarts future role far beyond that of discount retailer.
Walmart will need help but in the end, this is the exact path predicted by the authors....its fun to watch!
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Comment by Jason Hwang on November 17, 2011 at 10:51am -
Having spoken to several of Wal-Mart's health and wellness team leaders, I'm encouraged by what's happening (even though they now seem to be trying to temper all the media attention). Wal-Mart has a couple of real advantages when it comes to entering health care delivery. First, because its stores are so uniformly standardized, it can easily pilot ideas at individual stores and compare performance to the overall "control." This has allowed Wal-Mart to test things like putting LASIK eye surgery and diagnostic laboratories in its stores -- not just retail clinics and primary care. The other advantage is that Wal-Mart can easily scale any solution that it finds worth doing. If it devises a disruptive business model for health care delivery, Wal-Mart could very easily become everyone's neighborhood care provider.
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