COVERAGE: Medical Mallrats

Although the name might lead you to think of retail clinics, Lola Butcher's new article from HealthLeaders Magazine titled "Medicine at the Mall" actually talks about taking over THE WHOLE mall.  Yes, really.

But it's not as crazy as it seems.  The article highlights the experience of Vanderbilt University Medical Center, who after watching the costs and headaches rise from expanding its downtown campus, looked at the cost of taking over an aging, half-vacant shopping center.  They could get quite a bang for their buck, it turned out.

Cost was only the beginning, as Ms. Butcher writes.  Vandy serves the large Nashville metropolitan area but is downtown and can be difficult to reach by car.  The new facility, on the other hand, is right off the interstate and near some of the residential areas served by the medical center.  Bucking the NIMBY trend, all the property values near the new center have risen.  Residents viewed the old mall space as "underdeveloped."  It may turn out to very convenient for patients to be able to access a variety of services under one roof.  Even parking will be easier. Much of it is already constructed.

Surprisingly, this idea is nearly 15 years old:

One of the nation's most successful medical malls was started in the mid-1990s when a Jackson, MS, physician recruited University of Mississippi Medical Center to convert a desolate shopping center into a healthcare hub for the city's urban poor. Today, the Jackson Medical Mall houses more than 30 clinics and other medical services, along with restaurants, educational institutions, and human services organizations.

Since then, at least 50 medical malls have emerged across the country, Hunter (a developer) says, with more on the way. On behalf of Prince George's County in Maryland [nearv Washington, DC], Hunter's firm studied the feasibility of converting four underperforming shopping centers into medical malls to increase access to healthcare services for inner-city residents. Such projects might reduce the burden on the county-owned hospital, which is overtaxed by patients using its emergency department for services that could be providing in an outpatient setting.

With 440,000 square feet of leased space to be completed in April, "Vanderbilt Health at One Hundred Oaks" will house nearly 20 clinical programs and nearly 750 Vanderbilt employees.  With health care one of very few sectors weathering our recession better than most other industries, it is excellent to see so many health systems revitalizing old space near the residents they seek to serve.