Have you been wondering what sort of businesses will lease at least part of the space vacated by Sears and other large retails chains that are vacating their mall space. One possibility will be large health systems that are placing selected outpatient services in mall spaces. Details were provided in a recent article (see: Retail clinics have what patients, healthcare execs want). Below is an excerpt from it:
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute plans to lease about 34,000 square feet of space at Patriot Place, a shopping and entertainment center in Foxborough, Mass., where it will offer both cancer treatment and hematology services....Oncology and infusion are among next generation of specialties predicted to shift into retail settings, along with the management of chronic diseases like diabetes, asthma and hypertension....There were an estimated 2,800 medical clinics in retail space in the U.S. in 2017....That includes a 47% jump in the last three years alone....Changing dynamics in healthcare reform, technological advances, demographic shifts and consumer preferences are driving healthcare providers to adopt new locations in retail centers....In 2018, 73% of healthcare construction was happening off of hospital campuses, compared with just 56% in 2014....In response, health systems are working to evolve their organizations to rely more on outpatient revenue and less on inpatient. Dallas-based Baylor Scott & White Health recently reported its admissions fell 7% and outpatient surgeries grew 7% year-over-year in the nine months ended March 31. Even as that happens, its operating margin is well above the national average among not-for-profit health systems....
[R]etail settings were designed to deliver exactly the kind of experience healthcare executives are now trying to create for patients: convenient, accessible locations, consistent branding and high visibility. They also offer parking and have easily accessible entrances....[This] trend will accelerate with the influx of inexpensive, vacant retail space as companies like Dressbarn shutter hundreds of stores....The losers, however, are health systems currently spending hundreds of millions of dollars on medical office buildings and healthcare real estate investment trusts....Dana-Farber won't be the only medical provider in a sea of dress pants and frozen yogurt [at Patriot Place]. Brigham and Women's/Mass General already has a clinic there that provides urgent care, cardiology, dermatology, pain management, gastrointestinal surgery and rehabilitation, among other things.... Patriot Place also has a CVS pharmacy and a handful of fitness studios.
Oncology infusion services have been leading the movement from inpatient to outpatient locations and now to retail space. This is all about an increased attention on the part of hospital executives to consumerism in healthcare, a large part of which consists of accommodating to the opinions of consumers. It's worth emphasizing the details of the "experience" that healthcare executives are trying to create as noted above: (1) convenient accessible locations; (2) consistent branding; (3) high visibility; and (4) easy, free parking.
In this same spirit, hospital lab blood drawing centers as well as remote hospital labs with point-of-care analytic instruments also need to be deployed in malls to accompany these retail clinical facilities. At the very least, blood draws can be completed in association with clinical visits if not the actual test performance. Moreover, I also think that necessary and appropriate lab studies could and should be ordered and performed prior to clinic visits. How can this be accomplished? The current practice is for the physician determine the necessary blood tests after a visit with a patient. I think that predictive analytics and common sense can be used to order lab tests before a visit. This is true particularly for tests that are ordered on regular basis for a patient.