By Healthcare Facilities Today

Factors for retail and restaurant expansion — such as good brand visibility, signage, parking and access — are increasingly the qualities sight for health care facilities. Health care providers are pursuing the same qualities to get in front of patients who are changing the way they shop for health care, according to an article on the Finance & Commerce website.

“Health care providers are adopting more of a retail thought process when they are planning for new locations,” Jill Rasmussen, a principal with The Davis Group in Minneapolis, said in the article.

The “retailization” of health care is occurring nationally as well as in the Twin Cities, said Louis Suarez, a broker in the health care services group at Colliers International in Minneapolis, the article said.

A number of factors are fueling health care's interest in retail-focused real estate locations. Greater competition for patients and a shifting health care delivery model are prompting providers to seek out locations that are convenient, close to patients and have greater visibility, the article said.

“As health care has been growing steadily, what you’re seeing is that branding has become more and more important over the last few years,” said Suarez in the article.

Read the article.