May 31, 2007
Using School based Clinic to Battle Disparities in Canada
From the Star Phoenix:
A new clinic at St. Mary Community School is bringing pediatricians into one of Saskatoon's poorest neighbourhoods.
The community-based clinic in Pleasant Hill -- the first of its kind in Canada -- is being touted as an innovative approach to addressing health disparities where the need is the greatest.
And later in the story:
It was tough for families before the clinic opened because children would wait three or four months to see a pediatrician once they had been referred by a family doctor, she said.
The clinic not only delivers expedient health-care services, but it does so at an accessible location that addresses transportation barriers to health care.
Here in Cleveland, a recent Plain Dealer story talked about the rise of mini-clinics in the area.
MinuteClinic began seeing patients inside the Chagrin Falls CVS drugstore earlier this month.
It's the third MinuteClinic in Northeast Ohio, joining a growing number of miniclinics operating in drug and grocery stores around the region.
MinuteClinics offer limited medical services, such as strep throat tests, flu shots and poison ivy treatment, usually performed within a half-hour.
Most of the services cost $49 or an insurance co-payment.
Staffed by nurse practitioners and physicians assistants, the clinics are open 12 hours on weekdays, and six hours on Saturdays and Sundays.