Sutter Health Closing Satellite Clinic in Rancho Cordova

As of February 15, Sutter Health will close three of its retail health clinics in the region. The reason for the closures include too little traffic to make the business viable. Six employees at clinics in Rite Aid stores in Elk Grove, Folsom and Rancho Cordova will lose their jobs, but Sutter will help find placements for them.

Three other clinics in Rite Aid stores in Roseville, Natomas and Greenhaven will remain open and will  possibly expand the services they provide. Sutter is forced to reconsider its approach to retail health care in a down economy.  Medi Stop, a competing clinic in Natomas, shut its doors in May due to falling traffic as well.

But not all satellite clinics are suffering.  A WalMart clinic  in the West Sacramento called Quick Health is doing well and is seeing increasing business.

Sutterwas the first health system in the region to try the retail approach which began in 2006. The health system has invested more than $2 million in the initiative.  At its peak, the program reached 6 clinics in the region. The clinics received a total of about 30,000 patient visits in the past two years. The three clinics that are closing typically saw less than 20 patients a day, not enough to sustain operations, Sutter Express Care director Pete Dzwilewski said.

We are not giving up on the concept,” he said. “We’ve learned from the experience. Services will continue in Roseville, Greenhaven and Natomas and we are looking at expanding to offer programs such as smoking cessation and weight loss.”

Another goal of the Sutter clinics was to encourage referrals to Sutter doctors. This area of the program was a success. 58 percent of the patients who visited the clinics have been new to Sutter and 7 percent of subsequent visits have been with Sutter providers, Dzwilewski said.

 

Posted by Michelle Ventress on Jan 29 2009. Filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.