MEDICAL MALL: Will It Meet All Your Health Care Needs?
The Wal-Martization of health care has begun. The ubiquitous mega-retailer has entered a unique agreement with a medical complex in Bradenton, FL to lease 3,000 square feet near the complex's entrance to sell drugs, medical equipment and vision products. The 65,000 square foot complex, to be known as Healthcare America, will house up to 300 employees providing services 12 hours a day, year round. Healthcare America CEO Dr. John Mucasey thinks "medicine should be a team sport," and plans to offer most standard outpatient services, as well as a few traditionally only offered in hospitals.
Attention Health Care Shoppers!
The facility will use golf carts to move patients through the mall, which is the length of two football fields. It will contain a rehabilitation center, offices, a cafe, rooms for education, board meetings and training and a lab on site with pneumatic tubing to whisk specimens through the building. The mall will house doctors specializing in primary care, radiology, pulmonology, cardiology, gastroenterology, OB-GYN and possibly surgery. Among other diagnostic services the mall will offer on- site MRIs, axial tomography, bone densitometry, ultrasound and nuclear medicine (Shepherd, Tampa Bay Business Journal, 12/14).