Take two walks, call me tomorrow
HEALTH CHAIN AIMS ITS ‘EXERCISE AS MEDICINE’ MANTRA AT BOOMERS
Most businesses start with an ambition and a “mission,” which usually means making money, or, at the least, making a good living. But a new Vancouver- area health chain also has another mission — to use exercise as a medical treatment, especially for seniors.
Live Well Exercise Clinic is a combination of founder Sara Hodson’s passion, and serial entrepreneur and co-founder John DeHart’s know-how, which he gained as co- founder of the Nurse Next Door home care chain, which, with more than 140 locations, is one of North America’s largest home care operations.
Live Well’s mission is to have Canada’s baby boomers — now creating a seniors’ boom — turn the aging tide in their favour. It could be a tall order: currently, studies show that boomers will be the first generation to be in worse health as seniors than their parents.
But, of course, the business case can’t be ignored. Today, seniors form a larger share of the Canadian population than children and this gap will only expand as more people age into the category. At the same time, doctors are starting to recognize that exercise can be equivalent to, or better at, creating good health than can medication, especially for such lifestyle problems as obesity.
Combine the two trends and there exists a clear business opportunity.
DeHart met Hodson when their companies operated in the same Vancouver- area building. Intrigued by her concept, he remembered her after he left Nurse Next Door and began pondering his next move.
“After Nurse Next Door, I took a year off to think, and met a guy who said that the clinic had changed his life — and other people said the same thing,” he recalls. “I thought ‘ Here’s a concept that no one else is doing — physical fitness and ‘ medicine’ in one place.’ Within three weeks I wanted to do Live Well.”
Live Well Exercise Clinic currently has five locations in the Vancouver area and has five more in the works. It also has a list of more than 800 doctors who be- lieve in their approach to health and suggest lifestyle changes to their patients.
“We started with three,” says Hodson, who previously was a physiologist working with people involved with hospital health care. She has been refining the Live Well system since 2011, and has fashioned it to doctors’ requirements for exercise as health care.
Live Well locations are more l i ke health- care centres than gyms. Members, who are referred by doctors or friends, typically have one or more health conditions and risk factors for chronic diseases such as diabetes, obesity and heart disease. Staff members are clinical physiologists or other professionals involved in exercise as medicine.
“Forty per cent of our members are there for prevention,” Hodson added. “We have created a system for doctors to send people to us, and we provide the physicians with regular reports. But some ( people) come through word of mouth.”
Clients are given specific programs, and, to ensure continual attention, only 12 appointments and three staff members are in a facility at one time. Costs for the program are around $ 200 a month.
As a result, the attrition rate is minimal: a traditional gym loses nearly a quarter of new clients in their first four to five months, while Live Well loses just a tenth.
Live Well currently has three corporate clinics and two operating franchise locations, but is taking the unique health franchise national. It expects to have signed 20 new franchise partners by the end of 2017 and to be in all major cities in Canada and in the United States with a few years.
DeHart said that, although he is experienced, he did not anticipate the level of interest in his new franchise play to come so soon.
“I am turning away far more applicants than I accept to become a Live Well franchise partner,” he explained. “It shows that entrepreneurs view health care as one of the next big business opportunities.”
FORTY PER CENT OF OUR MEMBERS ARE THERE FOR PREVENTION.