Dive Brief:
- Telehealth kiosk vendor HealthSpot has made agreements to roll out two pilots with major healthcare players.
- One of the pilots will be with Rite Aid, which with 4,600 stores is the third-largest drug store chain in the US. Rite Aid will pilot HealthSpot kiosks in three Ohio markets—Akron/Canton, Cleveland and Dayton/Springfield. To deliver care, HealthSpot will partner with the Cleveland Clinic and other large health systems in the state.
- HealthSpot has also struck a deal with the Mayo Clinic to do an in-house pilot serving 2,000 Mayo Clinic Health System employees in Austin and Albert Lea, Minnesota. Later, the partners expect to expand to local, Mayo-covered employers.
Dive Insight:
While telemedicine ventures serving consumers via smart phone and desktop computer have gotten a lot of attention in the press, HealthSpot has been quietly building its network, largely connecting with high-profile providers. To date, the company has taken in $18.3 million in venture funding, and if it continues to snare deals with large healthcare organizations, there's no reason to think it won't attract more.
Looked at one way, HealthSpot kiosks fill the same care gap as retail clinics, in that they limit themselves to treating common health conditions such as colds, earaches, sinus infections and rashes. But retail clinics are expensive to build and staff, and require IT infrastructure—including access to an EMR—to maintain operations. The kiosks, meanwhile, only require one staff person for maintenance and cleaning. They could pose a meaningful challenge to retail clinics.