Quickmedx Inc., Case
Innovative service business models that behave disruptively* in the market and have the opportunity to overtaking existing market leaders in the industry and QuickMedx is a good example of such a disruptive model. Unlike outpatient clinics and emergency care centers, QuickMedx offered a fast and convenient way at low cost to its customers to get treatment for common illnesses such as strep throat, influenza, ear infection, pink eye and seasonal allergies which people had to wait for hours at clinics to get done. QuickMedx established itself in high volume retail shopping environments and teamed up with Supervalu’s Cub Food shopping center chain to open up kiosks that would target customers and provide them with quick diagnosis of their illness. At the kiosks, QuickMedx had Nurse practitioners** (NPs) who where the window person to the customers and would walk them through a strict set of guidelines which would last from five to ten minutes and will allow the NPs to asses using computer systems whether to either treat, prescribe or direct the customers to a another clinical setting if required. Basically they had observed the necessity and delivered a service that was cheaper and convenient to the public and targeted a broad demographic at high volume shopping areas. QuickMedx was focused to remain as a pay as you go retail clinic that would provide common illness solutions within in minutes without intending to be a primary healthcare center to treat major illnesses and later on collaborated with insurance companies to increase customer volume. The challenges faced by QuickMedx were a hurdle as it for any disruptive technology having characteristics of a new business model and away from the existing norm; they did not have sufficient data to forecast stability for the future. NP’s were hard to retain and the major issue was to decide on what to do next in order to grow. Raising capital was an issue as venture capitalists were focusing on other industries to invest