A one-time IT executive in Perth has built a national business that fills a gap in the healthcare sector.
IT is a common problem for healthcare consumers in Australia – a minor ailment occurs, a prescription is required but a GP appointment is unavailable for hours, possibly days.
It’s a service roadblock that has contributed to the patient-saturation of Australia’s primary healthcare system.
Perth business executive Louise Stewart witnessed these problems first hand as a frustrated health consumer and through her corporate health assessment company, Revive Group, over six years.
Ms Stewart drew on this experience and her 10 years as a senior manager in IT to establish Revive Clinics, Australia’s first community-based ‘nurse practitioner’ clinics.
“I could see our health care system was under pressure. I felt there was a real need there to offer something more in the community than just that GP service and it didn’t have to be a GP to fill that gap,” Ms Stewart said.
Enter the nurse practitioner.
Through Curtin University, Ms Stewart discovered a relatively new breed of nurse – or the “super-nurse” as Revive Clinic’s chief nurse practitioner, Leah Hansen, likes to call them.
Nurse practitioners are qualified to assess, diagnose and prescribe basic medications such as antibiotics.
“We complement the GP service; patients still need their GP but we free the GP up from the common ailments and health education,” Ms Hansen told WA Business News.
Fast forward six years through the red tape and bureaucracy involved in starting a healthcare business, and Revive Clinic is growing rapidly.
Ms Stewart opened the flagship Revive Clinic at Garden City shopping centre 18 months ago using private capital she had accumulated from her days as an IT executive.
Seven clinics have followed, including in Queensland, New South Wales and the ACT, and she has her sights set on Kalgoorlie, Esperance and Western Australia’s northern boomtowns.
Four of the clinics operate as franchises run by Healthetc Pharmacies – a move that has made it possible for Ms Stewart to avoid seeking external sources of funding.
Physical expansion is not the only growth on the agenda; services provided by the clinics will be extended, as will plans to move in to mental health and midwifery services.
A handful of private health funds do offer rebates for the services provided by Revive Clinic, and growth opportunities for nurse practitioner clinics are about to increase thanks largely to the Health Legislation Amendment that passed through federal parliament last month.
This means the services of nurse practitioners will be funded under the Commonwealth Medicare Benefits Schedule from November 1.
Standard consultations at Revive Clinic were initially offered at a cut price of $35 to make services comparable with GP consults, but the price will increase to $60 in November with patients able to access a $32.50 Medicare rebate.
“Certainly when the Medicare rebates are available we will be charging what the consults are really worth,” Ms Stewart said.
Despite a resounding positive reaction to Revive Clinics from consumers and other streams of primary healthcare, the Australian Medical Association has resisted the incorporation of nurse practitioners in the field.
“The only resistance has been from the AMA; I expected it. We are innovative and breaking new ground, there was always going to be resistance,” Ms Stewart said.
Educating consumers and healthcare groups has been Ms Stewart’s strategy in overcoming what she said was a misunderstanding of the nurse practitioner’s role.
“The AMA is thinking nurse practitioners are like GP nurses, but they are poles apart in terms of experience, education, capabilities and legally in terms of what they can do,” Ms Stewart said.
‘‘There has been a real education as part of that. Nurse practitioners are not replacing GPs, we are offering a different service.”
According to Ms Stewart, if owners of GP clinics feel threatened by Revive Clinics, it is unwarranted.
“I don’t think owners of GP clinics need to feel threatened, I think what this is about is filling those gaps in our health care system that are currently not being serviced,” Ms Stewart said.
