Prime Health Nurse Practitioner uses digital presence to heighten the in-clinic experience
“There was just so much about the digital world that the business needed."
North Bays Prime Health Nurse Practitioner is a special kind of business. As a Primary Health Care Nurse Practitioner (PHC-NP), owner Kayla King can diagnose and treat illnesses, prescribe medication, and perform other tasks commonly associated with doctors.
The ability to provide this kind of patient care is not the only thing that makes King unique. Although Nurse Practitioners (NPs) have been around since the 1960s and regulated since 1998, according to data from the College of Nurses of Ontario (CNO), Ontario has only 26 Nurse Practitioner primary healthcare facilities.
“It's becoming more popular” says King, “but a lot of NPs tend to focus on offerings that healthcare benefits and private insurance cover… there are just a few of us doing primary healthcare privately.”
Prime Health is a fee-for-service clinic, meaning visits are not covered under OHIP. That also means patients are typically coming to King because they are prioritizing their health – and they are willing to pay for care. “It changes the rhetoric about the (caregiver-patient) relationship,” she says.
The in-person experience is a vital part of King’s approach to healthcare, but that does not mean digital presence is not an important part of the clinic. While building out her business plan King’s business advisor pointed her toward Digital Main Street, a program which combines grants and one-to-one support from the Province of Ontario alongside partners to help main street businesses strengthen their online capabilities and plan for the digital future. King received a $2,500 Digital Transformation Grant and digital training.
“When I first started my business, I didn’t want to do anything on social media… I didn’t feel like it was a place for primary healthcare,” she says. “But then I quickly realized that social media is a kind of life right now for a lot of people.” It is where King’s patients go to learn about her clinic.
For King, discovering Digital Main Street kicked off a deeper conversation about the role of digital marketing within her business and how it could help her help more people. The Digital Transformation Grant helped to bridge the gap between the digital elements of her business – a clean, professional website that educated potential patients and an effective online booking system – and her daily interactions with patients in the clinic. It also allowed her to invest in a Square point-of-sales system to make payments easier for patients.
“There was just so much about the digital world that the business needed.” King says her website also acts as a calling card of sorts, helping physicians in town find her. “They know who I am and what I offer and now they’re referring patients to me.”
Learn more about Prime Health Nurse Practioner here.
To learn more about the Digital Transformation Grant, and how it can help your business visit here.
Digital Main Street was created by the Toronto Association of Business Improvement Areas (TABIA) with direct support from the City of Toronto. DMS is also supported by a group of strategic business partners, including Google, Mastercard, Shopify, Meta, Intuit QuickBooks, Square, Lightspeed, Ebay and Canada Post.
Continued investment from the Province of Ontario, through the Ministry of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade (MEDJCT) has allowed the ongoing expansion the Digital Main Street Platform in order to support more businesses going digital across Ontario.
