Coming Soon to a Pharmacy Near You: The “Retailization” of the Nation’s Health Care System

It is time to transform pharmacists’ traditional role as mere dispensers of medicine and let them also treat minor ailments, administer an array of vaccines and manage patients with chronic diseases, the country’s chain drug stores argue in a new report to be released Wednesday. Remaking druggists as more wide-reaching health professionals could free up millions of hours for overworked doctors, curb emergency-department crowding — and save the health-care system substantial sums, suggests the white paper.

Chris Jennings served as a senior health care adviser to the White House from 1993 to 2000. He wasn't quite a czar, but close. And so he is particularly sensitive to the political structuring of some of this stuff.

According to Merchant Medicine's "2011-2015 Walk-In Clinic Market Forecast," the number of retail clinics in the U.S.

American Medical News -- "When patients walk into a NowClinic at any one of nine Detroit-area Rite Aid pharmacies, they can choose among multiple physicians to see about what's ailing them. Not see in person. See on a computer monitor.

The Census Bureau released its annual study today on "Income, Poverty, and Health Insur

When consumers need to get a drug prescription filled, they tend to turn to the neighborhood drugstore. Understandably so. But if drugstores were honest, some prescriptions would come with a special warning label: You May Be Getting Ripped Off. Consumers who have health insurance—and whose insurance cover their prescriptions—probably don’t notice or care about the full list prices for their prescriptions.

When consumers need to get a drug prescription filled, they tend to turn to the neighborhood drugstore. Understandably so. But if drugstores were honest, some prescriptions would come with a special warning label: You May Be Getting Ripped Off. Consumers who have health insurance—and whose insurance cover their prescriptions—probably don’t notice or care about the full list prices for their prescriptions.

MONTREAL — A division of telecom giant Telus (TSX:T) is buying Ontario’s largest electronic medical record business, increasing the number of paperless files and bringing more than 5,000 more doctors online. Telus Health says it’s acquiring MD Practice Software, part of a subsidiary of the Canadian Medical Association, for an undisclosed price. It says the move will bring the total number of doctors who use electronic medical records technology to 9,000 across the country.