Wal-Mart Mandates E-Health Tools For Patient Care -- E-Health -- InformationWeek

Wal-Mart Mandates E-Health Tools For Patient Care -- E-Health -- InformationWeek: "Are a patient's symptoms more likely to get digitally documented into an electronic medical record at the convenience clinic inside Wal-Mart than at his or her own doctor's office? Possibly. The emergence in the last few years of convenience health clinics operated in the stores of retailers such as CVS, Walgreen's, and now Wal-Mart has brought with it an unexpected twist.

Besides providing quick tests for strep throat and prescriptions for antibiotics by nurse practitioners working in small spaces set up somewhere between the cosmetics and pet food aisles, these retailers are deploying technology tools in their clinics that most doctors still lack in their offices -- e-health records and decision-support systems."

Once patients start seeing how much better EMRs are, they'll start pushing their doctors to adopt them too !