The September/October 2008 issue of the journal Health Affairs, supported by the California HealthCare Foundation, includes a series of articles exploring innovations in health care delivery, including an in-depth look at retail clinics and other alternative delivery models. Among the select articles available online at no charge through CHCF:

• "The Emergence of Retail-Based Clinics in the United States: Early Observations," by Margaret Laws, MPP, director of CHCF's Innovations for the Underserved program, and consultant Mary Kate Scott, provides an overview of the rapid proliferation of retail clinics and highlights some of the operational and policy questions introduced by this model of care.
• "Cost-Reducing Innovation in Health Care," by James C. Robinson, PhD, MPH, professor of Health Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health, and CHCF President and CEO Mark D. Smith, MD, MBA, contends that regulatory, payment, market, and tax policies need to encourage, not discourage, economizing by patients and providers.
• "Measuring the Medical Home Infrastructure in Large Medical Groups," by Diane R. Rittenhouse, MD, MPH, of the UCSF School of Medicine, et al., examines medical groups with at least 20 physicians and finds that the largest of these groups have the highest level of medical home infrastructure, but adoption is slow.

These and other articles are available free of charge on the Health Affairs site, accessible through the External Links.