Originally Posted by serenityseeker

The idea with regard to Walgreen's is ok at best. The clinics like many other "minuite clinic" set ups are staffed primarily by nurse practitioners and are primarily (even according to their own site) for minor conditions such as colds, flu, upper respiratory track infections, and minor skin conditions. While any or all of these may be bothersome most don't require any treatment beyond symptomatic relief from over the counter medications. The setting provides decent potential for profitability because of just those reasons and the fact that an NP is paid less.
As much as it may be magnanemous and somewhat innovative on their part, it really does very little to address issues with our health care industry at large. It could be considered wasting resources by knowledgable people as is much of the rest of our system. What it does not address is the incredibly large problem of people with multiple co-morbidities (the diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, heart disease collection that so many have for example). There are also so many other things that a system like this can never adaquately address.
This for the most part is sort of "feel good" medicine that appeals the segment of society (pretty large I think) that thinks they need a doctor and a pill for everything or they just are not getting their money's worth. That's what I mean by waste.
I bring none of this up to knock their program, but to make sure some other aspects of it and the system at large are factored in.