A quick update to my post two weeks ago about convenience clinics! 

It appears, from an article in today's Philadelphia Inquirer titled "New Standards for Convenience Clinics", that the newly formed Convenience Care Association is keeping apace with the critics by announcing new safety and quality standards.

It is refreshing to see an organization act swiftly (or so it seems) to forestall any serious criticism, by composing and agreeing to a set of standards designed to address the most legitimate and serious concerns.

The standards include several quality measures, such as:

• peer and physician review
• use of evidence-based treatment guidelines
• collection of patient-outcome and satisfaction information
• building relationships with other health-care providers with a view to sharing patient information as appropriate

Watching with fascination how the delivery of medical care is evolving through different business models, I am once again made aware of the inventive, creative nature of entrepreneurship at work. I hope that the end result of all of these disparate efforts will be an integrated, affordable, "commonsensical" continuum of care that capitalizes on our greatest strengths - knowledge, technological skill, and the desire to do good!

By the way, I am bummed that what I thought was my own cleverly made-up term - convenience medicine - was thought of long before I got there!!