Prompt Care Centers: Build Them - Help Patients, Help Economy!
Lower the cost of health care and create jobs at the same time. The new health care reform bill or a new stimulus plan should allow for the building of prompt care centers across America in small towns and cities.
Larger cities in the country provide these types of clinics, saving the ER's in hospitals for major emergencies instead of those that just can't wait till Monday or the next day.
This would not only provide cheaper service for emergencies, like broken bones, sinus infections, flu, stomach aches, cuts or bruises, etc..., it would create thousands of jobs.
Jobs for realtors, lawyers, lumber companies, electric companies, medical equipment companies, plumbing equipment companies, surveyors, architects, construction workers, plumbers, electricians, concrete layers.
Property must be negotiated for, surveyed and razed. Buildings must be designed and accountants must tally up the costs of building supplies, etc... Equipment and supplies must be purchased and ordered. Builders may need places to live while building the centers. The construction workers, plumbers, electricians and concrete layers are hired to meet the required standards for such a clinic and then to build them.
Each center will require medical equipment, pharmaceuticals, office equipment and furniture. The stores that provide these items may need to hire additional workers to provide this service.
Each clinic will require office personnel, office managers, nurses and doctors to run it and provide much needed service.
Accountants, bookkeepers and computer professionals will be needed to keep tabs of the budget and payrolls of these clinics.
In short folks, millions of sick people could not only get cheaper health care for those minor emergencies, they could get it a little faster. Millions of major emergency patients could get a little faster service as well because the ER's in hospitals would be responsible for only those cases. Thousands of short term jobs would be created to build the clinics and thousands of long term jobs would be created to run those same clinics.
I think this idea could be considered outside the whelm of Health Care Reform bill, and instead written up as a second stimulus plan.
I agree that this should be part of a second or third stimulus plan. But I like this a lot.
Plans can be adapted for each location because of soil etc...but these centers can look alike. This saves money.
October 30, 2009 3:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree, saves money, creates jobs. I may not create a lot of jobs in one city; but the combination of jobs created across America might help revive the jobs market.
October 30, 2009 8:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know, coonsey. Building Prompt Care Centers from scratch seems inefficient in this day and age. An unnecessary use of raw materials when there are plenty of empty buildings that could be refitted for medical use. That would still create some temporary jobs but probably not anywhere near what your plan would engender. And it seems to me that well equipped centers like what you describe would benefit larger cities the most where emergency rooms are continuously overwhelmed. Not so much in low population areas. Food for thought, though.
October 30, 2009 10:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
In some cases you may be right flowerchild, however, it would be best to build from scratch then to have to constantly maintain an old building and keep it up to standards for a medical facility.
October 30, 2009 11:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
The local alliance that my physician belongs to has a walk-in care center in a local strip mall that the alliance doctors staff on a rotating basis.
There is a glut of commercial retail and office building space at the moment. It looks like it is pretty easy to convert that to waiting rooms, exam rooms, an X-ray room, adminstrative offices, etc in order to start a care center.
I also know of a veterinary practice that converted a vacant light industrial space formerly occupied by a network equipment manufacturer. There is a fair amount of internal construction work involved and modifications to plumbing and electrical systems, but you don't have to start from scratch.
October 30, 2009 12:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well then you guys are saving the government (taxpayers) money and still helping out with faster health care and cheaper care as well -- along with a few extra jobs too.
October 30, 2009 12:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just a word on behalf of those older buildings--especially those older buildings which are imbedded in historic neighborhoods. Consistent maintenance doesn't mean expensive maintenance--expense comes when the maintenance is slipshod or deferred. Major medical centers themselves don't demolish their older buildings unnecessarily. Some structures are well over a hundred years old and become symbols of the center's enduring commitment to the community in which it is.
Finally, adaptive reuse is labor intensive and materials conserving...a rather good combination in our day and age. And don't be lacking in imagination on the kinds of buildings which might make great commmunity prompt care centers.
Great idea and worth pursuing.
October 30, 2009 4:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Now....lets get Congress to either add this idea to health care reform bill or create a bill that supplements the health care reform and stimulus bills.
October 30, 2009 12:45 PM | Reply | Permalink