Health Ventures?

nightingale, RN · Aug 27, 2004

Yes, I do. I shall think about more of an answer for you too!

nightingale, RN · Aug 28, 2004

To all RN entrepreneurs:
I have a passion for business and for working with entrepreneurs. I've spent the last 13 years with an entrepreneurial investment banking firm, which focused on assisting entrepreneurs in the sale of their company (or facilitating an acquisition). This particular firm specialized in serving the consumer catalog and educational publishing markets.
I recently left the firm to pursue nursing. However, I haven't left behind my love of business, finance, and working with entrepreneurs. There has to be a business where I can combine nursing and finance.
I'm thinking of either joining a venture capital firm/investment banking firm in the healthcare field eventually--OR maybe launching my own business that provided financing to help RN entrepreneurs develop and grow their businesses.
Do you think this type of service would be helpful and needed in the healthcare field? I'd focus on healthcare businesses less than $50 MM in sales. Thanks for your comments/suggestions. Regards, Stephanie

I believe, Entrepreneurship, in the field of Nursing is a budding concept that will grow as Nurses are able to envision their autonomy. On this board, you will see Nurses discuss, ask, query on "how to" in Entrepreneurship. In our current economy, and in the patients best interest, the concept of Nurses providing services via private pay, and yes, Medicare/Medicaid is in it's infancy stage. Nurses ARE doing this and, in my opinion, this would best serve the Health Care population AND the patients.

Nurses need the support in business to envison their goals. Many of us are able to do the clerical support but accounting, marketing expertise, tax advisement, and many other areas of support to make our business a success is daunting to most.

For starters... I hope this begins a dynamic conversation between members...

Toby's mum · Aug 28, 2004

I believe, Entrepreneurship, in the field of Nursing is a budding concept that will grow as Nurses are able to envision their autonomy. On this board, you will see Nurses discuss, ask, query on "how to" in Entrepreneurship. In our current economy, and in the patients best interest, the concept of Nurses providing services via private pay, and yes, Medicare/Medicaid is in it's infancy stage. Nurses ARE doing this and, in my opinion, this would best serve the Health Care population AND the patients.
Nurses need the support in business to envison their goals. Many of us are able to do the clerical support but accounting, marketing expertise, tax advisement, and many other areas of support to make our business a success is daunting to most.
For starters... I hope this begins a dynamic conversation between members...

nightngale1998,

You were true to your word and I appreciate your response! I agree--it's my sense as well that nurse entrepreneurs are entering an amazing time of opportunity to be independent and run profitable businesses they love.

There are many areas where independent practice exist--look at YogaCRNA's recent success with the primary ownership of an outstanding free-standing surgical practice and all the business ventures listed on previous postings such as foot care etc.

I believe there is a tremendous opportunity for nurses to leverage their expertise and launch successful businesses. The nation's demographics and healthcare crisis make it an ideal environment for new business and personal success.

I want to eventually be in a position to finance and provide business support services to RN entrepreneurs. There's no greater network of experienced colleagues than the nursing market IMHO.

I look forward to further discussions. Regards, Stephanie

nightingale, RN · Aug 28, 2004

Stephanie:

Where do you see the growth coming from?

Toby's mum · Aug 29, 2004

Stephanie:
Where do you see the growth coming from?

From the products and services that nurses identify as a market opportunity. A good percentage of the aging population is better-off financially and will want certain items that make their health and well-being a priority. Who better than nurse entrepreneurs to identify these needs and leverage their knowledge into profitable businesses that meet the demand.

Toby's mum · Aug 29, 2004

For example, this article illustrates a medical issue that dealt a very personal blow to an individual who went on to develop a product that would help him and others with the same illness.

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From medical nightmare to business dream

Skin-cancer survivor invents sun-blocking clothing

By Martin Wolk

MSNBC

Updated: 2:03 p.m. ET Feb. 6, 2004

EVERETT, Wash. - - Shaun Hughes was 26 and an MBA student at Harvard when he got a rude wake-up call: Cancer.

It was sheer happenstance that the potentially fatal skin growth was discovered at all. Hughes recently had come away from a physical with a clean bill of health. But he had a friend who was a skin cancer patient, and she insisted that he see a specialist about an odd-looking mole on his back.

The mole was benign, but sure enough the specialist found a malignant melanoma on his shoulder that had to be removed surgically. Harvard was history. Hughes, who been enjoying some early success in a career on Wall Street, was forced to take a hard look at his life plan.

Out of this nightmare, a small-business dream was born.

“What I learned is you don’t have 50 years to make a difference in the world,” Hughes said. He wondered what he could do “rather than just working on Wall Street and putting a couple bucks in your pocket.”

Small businesses — and to some extent all businesses — succeed because they find a niche that needs filling. For a gas station or espresso stand, it can as simple as the proper location. In Hughes’ case, the unmet need was intensely personal: How could he even walk down the street — to say nothing of spending a day on the beach — without risking exposure to the harmful rays of the sun, which in his case could be deadly?

He found himself slathering up with sunscreen and then putting on two layers of clothing — a hot, messy and uncomfortable solution. Ordinary clothing, as he quickly learned, was not nearly sufficient to protect him.

Fast-forward a few years. Hughes completed his master’s degree at the University of California at Los Angeles and went to work as an investment banker. His cluttered ground-floor office features “tombstone” memorials of his biggest deals, including a $105 million leveraged buyout involving Piggly Wiggly, the supermarket chain.

But all along he was thinking about a lightweight fabric that would offer 100 percent protection against the sun. He saved enough money to quit his job and work full-time on the problem, traveling as far as Australia to attend conferences and meet with experts. Although not an engineer or doctor by training, he threw himself into research, working with experts in both textiles and dermatology. The result was a fabric dubbed Solumbra that not only was patented but also cleared for marketing as a medical device by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in May 1992.

Nearly 12 years later, Sun Precautions employs several dozen people in three retail stores, a factory and a historic three-story headquarters building in Everett, Wash., about 30 miles north of Seattle. This year the company will print 2 million copies of its annual catalog, offering shirts, hats and pants rated with a sun protection factor of at least 30 — sufficient to protect someone spending all day outside on Mount Mauna Kea, Hawaii, considered the sunniest spot in the world for its dangerous combination of high elevation and tropical sunshine.

Like the best entrepreneurs, Hughes, 47, brings passion, intensity and a long-term outlook to his business. With two young children, he may have mellowed a bit, but he still works 60 hours a week and flies 60,000 miles a year on business. (That’s down from 100 hours and 100,000 miles, he said.)

He drives to a Seattle lab twice a month to act as human guinea pig, allowing a technician to expose him to a high dose of ultraviolet radiation through a patchwork quilt of the company’s latest Solumbra fabrics. This seems like a ludicrously dangerous practice for a skin cancer survivor, but Hughes sees it as a sign of his personal commitment to his customers.

“To me, a president and founder of a company has an obligation to its customers — and that’s the credibility that the products work, that anybody who uses them should look at them as being safe and effective,” Hughes said. He has never been burned.

Sun Precautions sells clothing through a catalog, but the company bears only a superficial resemblance to Lands’ End or Eddie Bauer. Style is secondary to people so sun-sensitive they may need to wear a neck drape, gloves or even a face mask in the hot sun. The company has moved beyond the basic black, white and blue of its initial catalog, but basic cuts and colors still prevail.

The rigorous quality control procedures needed to conform with federal regulations give the company more in common with a maker of heart defibrillators, Hughes said. And while Hughes acknowledges that his company makes money — he declined to offer any financial details other than to say that revenue has grown every year — he wants his employees to care more about helping customers.

“You feel like you’re making the world a little bit better place when customers phone us up and they cry and they say how well the products work, or they are able to go off to Disneyland, which they weren’t able to do,” he said. “Those kinds of emotional things — it’s a wonderful experience within a job.”

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4143099/

nightingale, RN · Aug 29, 2004

Wow! What an article... did I ever welcome you Stephanie to the board? I am sure glad you are here to contribute. We have needed a shot in the arm with some new blood with new ideas/concepts.

So, one of the ideas "I" have is in developing a chair massage and foot care business. With diabetic foot care, there are many concerns about caring for the foot as well as for individuals who are vascular compromised.

I have searched the Internet and have seem suppliers. I assume, to a certain extent, one sets up and account orders and pays. There must be a 30 day grace period or a credit account set up.

Do you know anything about how the above works?

Have you used SCORE or have you consulted there?

WyomingRN · Aug 29, 2004

A nurse in New Mexico sent us a business plan that she had done for a college project. She shared it with us for the purpose of putting it on the web site so that others could see how a business plan was done. Along with the plan she had sent us the grades for the project and they were impressive to say the least. The plan was about setting up a business which would require a dialysis machine.

This is where I see the need for the most financial assistance. Getting equipment for such a specialized field.

Nursing is a service industry. With only the most basic equipment (such as a stethoscope or gate belts), most of the time all a nurse has to do is provide the time. Keeping the household bills paid while the $$ are spent on initial advertising/marketing, business set up costs, business insurance cost, while waiting for the first couple accounts receivable to be received is a challenge for many and the second greatest area of need financially. Small short term loans at a reasonable rate would go a long way in assisting many nurses. I believe that it would also turn into a boom business for someone that could provide this service. I don't think it should necessarily be limited to just nurses. I have a Massage Therapists that I think would go independent if she only such assistance. I do think that limiting it and specializing to serve such individuals would be a good idea.

I will reserve my other comments for PM's for now. Thanks for starting this post. The article you posted was a great example

chris_at_lucas_RN, RN · Aug 29, 2004

Gosh, I wish you'd put the PM info here!

My business background is specific to a psychotherapy private practice, and I wasn't terribly successful at that! I was good at the therapy part, but didn't know how to plan, was uneasy about collections and wound up giving away a lot.

I have no clue about this, and I found your earlier posts fascinating.

Plus, with a brilliant, well educated husband with a PhD in engineering but who, unfortunately is 60 and probably not going to get hired, I'm always on the lookout for ideas we can do together. He won't go to nursing school (dislikes "slime") but he's pretty darned bright and has too many productive years left to spend it playing computer games and feeling grumpy.

So, please, I wish you'd continue.

Thanks--for the previous posts and for any you might care to share.

Toby's mum · Aug 29, 2004

Here's another example of a business idea that stems from meeting a medical need that is on the rise. Nurses are on the forefront of the field and can readily identify the new needs of the market and can take advantage of this knowledge to develop creative business solutions.

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Booming business in caring for obese

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (AP) -- At St. Luke's Hospital, each of the 14 new neurology intensive care rooms has a feature that's becoming standard in the health care industry: a patient lift system that can handle 600 pounds.

Hospital officials had the equipment installed out of safety concerns -- it can take five or six nurses to lift extremely overweight patients, said Jennifer Ball, a patient care director with St. Luke's.

"I think we're seeing more (obese patients) and people are more conscientious about it," she said.

Severely overweight people tend to have more health problems and they often can't fit in standard beds or wheelchairs built for 300-pound people. The $3 billion market for hospital beds, wheelchairs and other equipment designed for plus-size patients is rapidly growing as more Americans become obese.

The government estimates about two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese; 31 percent fall into the obese category.

Kinetic Concepts Inc. of San Antonio said its line of specialty hospital beds and mattresses, including those for obese patients, took in $282 million last year, a 6 percent increase from the year before.

"There's more and more and more of these patients showing up at hospitals now," said Ron Dziedziula of KCI.

SIZEWise Rentals of Las Vegas, which specializes in medical equipment for the obese, said its business has grown 15 percent to 20 percent a year.

"Everywhere there's this awareness of obesity," said chief operating officer Trever Frickey.

Protecting health care workers

Health care providers are calling companies such as KCI and SIZEWise for beds built to support up to 1,000 pounds and wheelchairs that are 32 inches or wider.

The equipment often costs much more than its regular counterparts. A typical hospital bed can cost $2,000, but a reinforced bed for heavier patients can cost $6,000 or more.

"Everything has to be custom," said DuWayne Kramer, president of Kansas City, Kansas-based Burke Mobility Products, a key manufacturer. "You have to be thinking in a different way for everything."

Kramer said that in the past, hospital workers were forced to improvise to care for severely overweight patients.

"People were welding beds together or putting beds on the floor," he said. "When we first got into this (in 1979), there was nothing out there."

The equipment can be a blessing for hospital staff, who have the third-highest rate of injuries or illnesses among industries with 100,000 or more reported cases, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Many of those injuries come from lifting and moving patients, an activity made more dangerous when the patient is obese.

"With the average nursing age in the mid-40s, we need to protect our older, more experienced nurses," said Ball, the St. Luke's patient care director.

Novation Inc., an Irving, Texas-based hospital supply company, said it sold $847,000 worth of patient lifts in 2001. Last year, that number was up to $3 million.

Bariatric procedures

Another source of growth for the industry is the increase in bariatric surgery, such as gastric bypass, or so-called "stomach stapling." The American Society for Bariatric Surgery estimates 140,600 bariatric procedures will be performed in the nation this year, more than eight times the 16,200 procedures 10 years ago.

The growing demand for the procedure has led hospitals to open their own bariatrics practices and set up wings for bariatric patients. That means hospitals that were renting equipment for the occasional patient are now buying whole suites of specially designed beds, walkers and commodes.

"The volume (of operations) has dramatically increased, and that had drawn more companies to what they see as a lucrative field for them," said bariatric society president Dr. Harvey Sugerman. "The number of people getting the surgery is only 1 or 2 percent of those eligible for the surgery."

While most in the industry agree that the number of obese patients is fueling the current boom, others say society is becoming more accepting of overweight patients. People who might have stayed home for years out of shame now get treatment and equipment built for their needs.

"People would not be doing this if there wasn't market share to be captured, but the reason there is a market share is that this population has been underserved," said Walter Lindstrom, founding partner of the San Diego-based Obesity Law and Advocacy Center. "This isn't just for bariatric surgery. Bariatric patients also need to get their gall bladders taken out or they get cancer."

Many industry executives said they don't foresee a downturn for their products unless the country undergoes a fundamental shift in how it views diet and exercise. In the meantime, with federal statistics showing that 15 percent of children are now overweight, a second surge of potential customers may not be too far away.

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Find this article at:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/diet.fitness/08/27/caring.for.the.obese.ap/index.html

Toby's mum · Aug 29, 2004

A nurse in New Mexico sent us a business plan that she had done for a college project. She shared it with us for the purpose of putting it on the web site so that others could see how a business plan was done. Along with the plan she had sent us the grades for the project and they were impressive to say the least. The plan was about setting up a business which would require a dialysis machine.

This is where I see the need for the most financial assistance. Getting equipment for such a specialized field.

Nursing is a service industry. With only the most basic equipment (such as a stethoscope or gate belts), most of the time all a nurse has to do is provide the time. Keeping the household bills paid while the $$ are spent on initial advertising/marketing, business set up costs, business insurance cost, while waiting for the first couple accounts receivable to be received is a challenge for many and the second greatest area of need financially. Small short term loans at a reasonable rate would go a long way in assisting many nurses. I believe that it would also turn into a boom business for someone that could provide this service. I don't think it should necessarily be limited to just nurses. I have a Massage Therapists that I think would go independent if she only such assistance. I do think that limiting it and specializing to serve such individuals would be a good idea.

I will reserve my other comments for PM's for now. Thanks for starting this post. The article you posted was a great example

WyomingRN

That's the perfect example of what I've been thinking about. I also agree with your point about broadening the scope to include additional wellness-related specialties such as massage therapists. I'm glad to see you think there might be a need for short-term financing on reasonable terms. I look forward to hearing more ideas.

Was the idea for the dialysis machine to provide private, personalized, comfortable dialysis in a non-traditional out-patient setting i.e. rather than a hospital, have it be more like a private room in a soothing setting? There are people who have the discretionary income to pay for services such as this.

Thanks, Stephanie