America’s healthcare consumers value on-demand retail clinics for their convenience and perceived affordability. And they’ve been flocking to them over the past several years, threatening many health systems’ market share for primary care.

Hospital systems should seek more opportunities to collaborate with existing retail clinics, suggested Healthcare Finance associate editor Jeff Lagasse.

“When it comes to retail clinics and urgent care clinics, hospitals have two options: own them or partner with them,” Lagasse wrote. ” Patients are used to the conveniences of other industries such as retail, and increasingly they expect the healthcare industry to follow suit.”

The major hurdle, of course, is interoperability. Lagasse said that challenges in patient data transparency could prevent hospitals from properly interfacing with retail clinic and urgent care partners in the community.

Hospitals that do leverage retail clinic opportunities, in his opinion, have much to gain — particularly in rural and underserved areas.

“Healthcare delivery is evolving away from inpatient care in favor of more outpatient care, and if rural hospitals don’t adapt, then certain markets will simply let them disappear altogether,” he wrote.

Read Lagasse’s full editorial here, in Healthcare Finance.