Wal-Mart is missing a bet, here. They could set up a chain of stores designed specifically for “mass production medical testing”. Here’s the concept:
For a set contract price, all sorts of organizations send employees through these medical analysis centers that are somewhat like military induction medical centers, but far more complex. Segregated by gender, they provide their complete medical history and a list of all medications, OTC meds and supplements they are taking. They take off their clothes and put on medical gowns. Then, in some order:
Full body and dental X-ray and maybe other scans. Complete blood, urine, stool, saliva and hair testing. Fingerprints and retinal scans, height, weight, blood pressure. DNA test. Vision, hearing, smell (used for some neurological analysis), etc.
The idea being to provide a comprehensive medical baseline, as well as spotting major preexisting conditions, both known and unknown.
Processing hundreds of people every day, its purpose is not to diagnose and treat illness, but to ascertain “wellness”, as well as having a comprehensive snapshot of the person before they develop problems, so that changes can be automatically noted for physicians.
Over time, this could save companies a huge amount of money now lost to serious illness. But a Wal-Mart set up could then be subdivided for follow-up comparisons, such as the comprehensive blood work, which today is done by private labs.
They made a effort at beginning such an enterprise a couple of years back. For some reason they stopped.
Probably the same reason they haven’t been able to get into the banking business, lawsuits from those aready established in the business.