Business entrepreneurs are constantly seeking ways to increase profits through more sales, higher margins, new markets and product expansion. Social entrepreneurship may also seek higher profits, yet be willing to accept lower margins and operate in more difficult market environments as long as they are able to offer social benefits. The very nature of their field activities may reflect a pursuit of what they call a “mission-related impact,” as opposed to normal businesses that are more concerned about such issues as competition and product differentiation. At the heart of a social entrepreneur’s activities are business principles that organize, create and manage a venture to bring about social change. Social entrepreneurs usually have novel solutions to society’s pressing problems. Some work through non-profit or citizen groups, and most are now in the private sector.
While both business and social entrepreneurs measure performance in terms of profitability and return on investment, a social entrepreneur also includes the impact she or he makes on society — the so-called “double bottom line.” The main aim of a social enterprise is to further social and environmental goals for a good cause in a financially sustainable manner. In its purest form, social entrepreneurships are non-profits that reinvest the money they make to achieve a social goal. Most social enterprises are built on business models that combine a revenue-generating objective with social-value generation. Put another way, they redefine entrepreneurship as we have long known it by adding a social component.
At a time when our country is struggling to make healthcare less costly, our results confirm that primary care, when made more personalized and accessible to patients, can lower specialty and hospital costs, and keep people healthier and more productive. We have an opportunity to rebuild our healthcare system to ensure we’re delivering the right kind of care in the right place at the right time. But we can’t do that without investing in primary care that puts the patient and the doctor-patient relationship first.
WellCare Initiative (WCI) in collaboration with FIWON eradicates poverty through medical cost savings and social entrepreneurship
WellCare Initiative (WCI) and Federation of Informal Workers’ Organisation of Nigeria (FIWON) through an innovative alliance program provides WellCare model of free medical consultation, free prescription generation and affordable medical supplies, drugs and services to drive down the attributed cost of therapy. Patients are granted around-the-clock care, and doctors can spend more time with their patients. They can make house calls. They can dispense prescription medications in-office. WellCare model is more than peace of mind, therapy, and increased trust. It is actual medical care — about 85% of it. A strong foundation of primary care is required for every healthcare system
WellCare Initiative is a leading Health Care services organization pioneering a transformative business model with a patient-first approach to healthcare. WCI has uncompromising focus on personalized, high-quality care, providing convenient access to doctors, nurses, and medical teams who deliver comprehensive primary care services to patients giving them unparalleled attention and care. Patients have unrestricted access to appointments in the clinic, by phone and electronically, extended office and weekend hours, and 24/7 physician coverage. By spending more time with patients, WCI helps them avoid unnecessary specialist and hospital care, thereby reducing overall healthcare costs and focusing on the patient, rather than the paperwork. Having an advocate within the healthcare system, WCI patients report increased satisfaction with their care and benefits.
WCI is a national leader in the burgeoning free consultation and free prescription generation movement, whose adherents provide unrestricted access to primary care through longer appointments, extended hours, and phone and electronic communications with providers so patients can take care of health needs promptly and avoid downstream care and costs.
WCI clinics are designed to address approximately 90 percent of the issues for which patients seek a doctor’s care, including all routine primary and preventive care. This includes women’s health services, paediatric care, urgent care, wellness education, ongoing chronic disease management, select onsite procedures and diagnostics, as well as coordination of outside specialist and hospital care by a WCI provider.
One of the best things about WellCare model is that it comes in a variety of flavours. To date, the values WellCare lives by are a self-sustaining success. The clinic relies on word of mouth advertising primarily through the patients, since an overwhelming majority of its benefactors are FIWONs. FIWON also act as a referral source by identifying families in need. WCI provides exceptional care by ensuring that her patients also have a pathway to diagnostic and specialty care — some of the more difficult health services to reach for the most vulnerable. Her partnership with MEDICOEXPERTS, an International Health Concern program that has been around for decades, assists the clinic’s mission of providing holistic care. WellCare also carries out its mission by participating in Day of Caring (DoC). On this day, she collaborates with local physicians, dentists, volunteers, and experts from the Medical Society to provide free health screenings at a makeshift clinic in a local community. Services include but are not limited to flu shots; blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol monitoring,; dental screening; and diabetes coaching A lot can be accomplished when communities are left alone to devise simple and effective ways to extend medical assistance and support services. WellCare is just one representative case study within the entire affordable medical care movement. It’s a contagious concept, and it’s all in good taste.
The analysis by WCI reveals that the increasingly popular WellCare model, with its emphasis on unrestricted access to primary care, makes healthcare 20 percent less expensive than traditional health insurance yet leaves patients feeling more satisfied with their care.
Pharm. ONOJA ALEXANDER D.
CEO, WellCare Initiative (WCI)
COORDINATOR, FEDERATION OF INFORMAL WORKERS’ ORGANISATIONS OF NIGERIA (FIWON)
07067703521, 08023048767
