Month: November, 2010

Ten Good Reasons Why Your Community needs a MedFit Wellness Center

1. Provide a channel to an enormous market of health-seeking Baby Boomers.
• By 2005, 1 out of 2 American adults will be over the age of 55.
• Four out of 10 in that group are willing to pay out-of-pocket to maintain their health and physical vibrancy.

2. Expand the visibility, scope and outreach of outpatient programs and affiliated physicians.
• Medical fitness center members represent a huge market of potential users of additional health-related services.
• Locating outpatient programs and physicians on-site provides natural and easy access to these services as required.

3. Provide a new source of operating income.
• Well-managed medical fitness centers consistently generate 15% or more of new net operating income for the general operating fund of the hospital.
• Typically, the money is used to further expand preventive initiatives in the community.

4. Utilize philanthropic donations to create a unique community asset.
• Although a medical fitness center consists of bricks and mortar, it is energetically human in scope and services.
• It offers a satisfying philanthropic opportunity to people interested in vigorous initiatives in community health.

5. Provide a mechanism to enter the integrative medicine marketplace.
• A medical fitness center provides an extension of the wellness continuum and can reflect or extend your institution’s philosophy.
• The center offers a natural, comfortable environment for introducing the professional services of integrative medicine practitioners and also can easily encompass licensed MD medical techniques.

6. Provide a more compassionate reality to your wellness mission.
• Typically, hospitals focus on wellness programming to improve community health, but frequently lack a centralized facility in which to provide these services.
• A fitness center offers a bright, inviting, health-focused environment in which to pursue wellness-related activities.

7. Financially underwrite satellite ambulatory care campus real estate.
• Virtually all healthcare providers struggle with how to operate effective outreach programs to expand and solidify their base.
• Fitness centers produce income to support the development of other synergistic real estate projects, such as senior housing and physician offices.

8. Definitively differentiate your organization from the competition.
• Only 500-600 local hospitals and healthcare systems across the country offer the advantage of medical fitness centers.
• Developing and building a center speaks volumes about your commitment to improving community health.

9. Expand social entrepreneurship role into other community health ventures.
• A successful fitness center project strengthens and enhances entrepreneurial interest and skills at the sponsoring institution.
• An enthusiastic entrepreneurial attitude plays an extremely valuable role in terms of future business growth, even in healthcare.

10. Create healthier patients for the future.
• Medical fitness centers help keep people healthier as they age.
• When these people eventually utilize healthcare services, they generally will require shorter hospital stays and have better outcomes, improving hospital cost-effectiveness.