Clark has been a longtime advocate of nurse-in-a-box practices, but they're not doing well financially. Several have actually had to close their doors. The idea is still being germinated and needs time to be perfected. Walgreen's and CVS don't care if these in-store practices are lucrative or not; they just like that people are more likely to fill prescriptions inside their stores when there's a nurse practitioner present. Now Wal-Mart is starting a new initiative that has doctors upset because they're aligning with medical centers around the country for new nurse-in-a-box practices. The Wal-Mart facilities will refer patients out to the medical centers if someone is too ill to be seen in-store. Wal-Mart is also partnering with one urgent care chain owned by AOL's Steve Case in a couple hundred markets.

The nurse-in-a-box trend provides an advantage to the American people that's not being discussed: More than half of the clients are uninsured. That means your neighborhood nurse-in-a-box helps de-clutter the emergency room at your local hospital, allowing people with real medical emergencies to be seen faster. This pressure valve release is all to the good, according to Clark. He knows doctors will be alarmist about somebody dying at a nurse-in-a-box. But medicine involves educated hunches -- it is part art, part science. It's just as ridiculous to expect perfection from doctors as it is to expect it from a nurse practitioner. One out of every 6 dollars goes to medical care in our economy. That's by far the highest in the world. Nurse-in-a-boxes will not be the solution to what ails healthcare, but they will relieve some of the pressure on the system.