From the Chairman: More Choices Means More Information

As a full-service health care communications company‚ Intellisphere provides integrated communication products and services, education, and research to the health care industry. We are continuously working to identify new areas of publishing to meet the needs of the general practitioners‚ specialists‚ nurses, pharmacists‚ and managed care professionals we serve while maintaining our commitment to improving health care delivery and outcomes. As the publisher ofPharmacy Times,we strive to provide pharmacists with the information and resources they need to optimize patient outcomes.

Through our experience in the pharmacy marketplace and our relationships with key thought leaders, we have identified an opportunity to provide support to a rapidly growing sector of health care: retail-based clinics. The rising cost of care combined with the shortage of primary care physicians is encouraging many Americans to seek health care services at retail-based clinics. The Department of Labor posits that, due to the volume of newly insured patients as a result of the Affordable Care Act, the aging Baby Boomer population’s increasing demands for medical care, and an emphasis on preventive care, employment of advanced practice clinicians (such as nurse practitioners and physician assistants) who staff these clinics is expected to grow 31% by 2022. Projections like these indicate that retail-based clinics are here to stay, and efforts to improve the quality of patient care are just as important as methods to improve their accessibility, convenience, and affordability. This emerging health care niche represents an excellent opportunity for entrepreneurs to fulfill a need currently not met by the market. Retail clinics also offer more choice for consumers.

As the publisher ofPharmacy Times, we have partnered with the Convenient Care Association (CCA), the national trade association of companies and health care systems that provide consumers with accessible, affordable, quality health care in retail-based locations, to create a new publication:Contemporary Clinic. The goal ofContemporary Clinicis to provide advanced practice clinicians who practice in the retail setting with the necessary information to address these issues and improve patient outcomes.Contemporary Clinicwill publish clinical updates and best practices in the areas of acute, chronic, and preventive care, and practice management and career-development tools that assist advanced practice clinicians in delivering high-quality, efficient patient care in their practice. We hope that you will find the information contained in our inaugural, back-to-school issue to be informative and helpful in your practice. Please take a moment and provide your feedback on this new publication to our editorial office.

Thank you for reading!

Mike Hennessy Chairman and CEO