Last Shot and Is by Alive Again
In the mid 1990s, Americans studying abroad began widening their horizons--instead of spending a semester in Florence or Paris, they were heading off to India, Thailand, Bolivia and beyond.
Fran Lessans, a nurse at a higher health clinic in Baltimore, noticed that although students got the required travel inoculations, they were otherwise unprepared. "The health information they were getting was poor at best, so I started developing educational materials," Lessans says. "Discussion spread--I didn't even do any marketing--and people started coming out of the woodwork, wanting me to have care of them."
That's when she got the thought to set up out on her own. She partnered with a doctor, and they bought a stockpile of vaccines and fix upwards a minor, part-time dispensary offering individualized travel-wellness communication and injections. A couple of years later, Lessans was working as a nurse at Maryland General Hospital--and getting a constant stream of requests for after-hours travel consultations.
"The CEO of the hospital asked me, 'What exercise we have to do to keep you and your business here?'" Lessans recalls. "And I told him, 'Buy a franchise.'"
He did. And now fifteen years later, Passport Health has 170 clinics around the country, dispensing travel vaccines, flu shots and other therapeutic injectables such as homo growth hormone and osteoporosis shots.
Passport Health even trains regime agencies in dispensing anthrax and smallpox vaccines. We talked to Lessans about becoming a medical entrepreneur and the changing globe of travel wellness.
A travel-medicine clinic: now that is a niche.
The globe is a smaller identify than it was. Swine flu, anthrax, avian influenza, SARS and other problems have brought vaccines to the forefront. Businesses are expanding into Republic of india and People's republic of china and the developing world, and there are more people traveling, more scourges, more than media attention. It's terrible to say, simply when in that location are disasters, nosotros practise better. And I've institute that a lot of people come up in because they know someone who got sick away--if they have a cousin who went to Greece and got hepatitis, they'll make an appointment.
Who are your franchisees?
We have doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, people who were downsized looking for a franchise, people with medical folks in their family. A lot of our franchisees are well educated and looking for more stimulation than what an automotive or fast-nutrient franchise tin can provide. There is a trunk of cognition here that is e'er changing and you need to stay abreast of it. You lot take to accept a medical director involved.
We're meticulous virtually data drove and conduct studies. This is more of a professional franchise versus a blue-collar franchise, which is good news and bad news: I can't sell to all comers, but my franchisees don't need their mitt held every bit much.
How near the off-flavour?
Travel medicine tin can be slow in the fall, but we specialize in vaccines of all kinds. We've been involved in several bioterrorism initiatives with the Department of Defense, training them on using the anthrax vaccine. In the fall, nosotros do a lot of corporate flu and wellness contracts and take done vaccinations for T. Rowe Price, Delta Airlines and Constellation Energy. Plus we run a 24/7 call heart that answers travel health questions from military personnel and Department of Defense employees.
Why go to Passport Health instead of a doctor?
Yous tin call and tell us where yous're going, and then practice the forms online. In that location'southward no down time--yous're never sitting in an exam room waiting. It'southward the Nordstrom approach to medicine--your time is valuable. [In Baltimore, for $48,] we give yous a bound book of pertinent information and bear witness a video virtually what to expect, what to swallow and not consume. We teach you how to properly use bug repellent. This is our core business, and there'southward a lot of value because nosotros're non stretched thin doing anything else.
Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/206064
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