Healthcare Design - April 2014 - 14

C THE CENTER | 04.14
A new product mix
CVS's new tobacco-free stance raises more questions about how the retailing of
healthcare might affect the strategy and design of other healthcare environments
By Rosalyn Cama
CVS Caremark Corp. recently announced that it will
discontinue the sale of all tobacco products. President and CEO Larry Merlo said in a press release
that CVS is evolving into a healthcare company
and that to sell products known to be harmful to
a person's health is antithetical to its mission. The
company is estimated to lose $2 billion in tobacco
sales due to the move, but Merlo has called the loss
CVS's contribution to the larger issue of decreasing
national healthcare costs.
Is this really a values-driven decision? This year,
Fast Company updated its previous definition of the
country's emerging economic period as "The Age
of Flux," a time when best-laid plans are quickly
disrupted and the need for new tactics is constant,
to stress "the belief that a product or service can
radically remake an industry, change consumer
habits, and challenge economic assumptions." Is
the CVS strategy to stop selling tobacco products a
disruptive attempt to improve consumer habits or an
attempt to remake and reposition the retail pharmaceutical industry? With $2 billion at stake, it certainly
is a challenging economic assumption. To make up
that lost revenue means a shift in product or service
offerings, so what will this new CVS become?
The delivery of healthcare products and services
has become enormously competitive, in spite of the
fact that cost risks and reimbursement uncertainties are embedded in this highly regulated field and
driving the systemization of provider services. It is,
however, this disruption in the time-honored practice
of medicine that's creating openings for new tactical
delivery methods, such as retail healthcare. Hospitalbased health systems are also meeting the challenge
by moving their ambulatory services out beyond their
urban campuses, into the very convenient suburban blocks that CVS vetted 10 to 15 years ago. The
sociometric data that long drove retail real estate
decision-making is now so sophisticated that it can
reveal a consumer's health tendencies with corresponding zip-code-based spending patterns.
Conveniently located retail health centers are
being developed to offer the promise of predictable
managed care through an efficient, readily available,
clinical consult, with the added bonus of selling applicable products. Is CVS's healthcare model ready
to emerge with product and service offerings as
addictive as the lost $2 billion in tobacco products?
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Will those products and services offer improved
health for all who are willing to shop for it? CVS,
what does your sociometric data reveal about
this redefined health consumer? You must have
studied the data and have a plan in place.

Competition from retail healthcare
services will test our skills as designers
to brand like never before.
Healthcare architecture, design, and facilities consultants should take note. We've all been
trained to design for patient-centered clinical services, but consumer-based retail services will add
a layer of competition not typically experienced in
healthcare design. This competition will test our
skills as designers to brand like never before and
design a new path to wellness that's only been
hypothesized but never fully measured. The importance placed on HCAHPS scores has started
a conversation about how patients' perception of
care measures up to their expectations, and how
they report that experience. But do we yet know
the proven metrics about how to stage a successful medical experience? Will the retail chains figure
this out before the healthcare systems?
As an evidence-based designer, I, too, need
sociometric data to map a variety of ambulatory experiences in order to design accountably.
Retail healthcare has thrown down the gauntlet,
and we in healthcare design have to launch from
a baseline of knowledge that's just been given
the opportunity to go mainstream. How shall we
continue to build that knowledge and translate it
for a more ambulatory consumer seeking health
answers in Aisle 12?
The Center for Health Design is asking these
questions and building a database that informs
tools and services to assist in the design of environments that heal. As a healthcare design professional reading this article, how will you respond to
the redefined health consumer? HCD
Rosalyn Cama, FASID, EDAC, is president and principal interior designer of Cama Inc., in New Haven,
Conn. She is the board of directors chair for The
Center for Health Design (www.healthdesign.org)
and can be reached at rcama@camainc.com.

Rosalyn Cama

http://www.healthdesign.org http://www.HCDmagazine.com

Healthcare Design - April 2014

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