Healthcare has been a popular topic in the United States lately. And, according to a survey done by Bloomberg, when looking at how much each country pays in comparison to the quality of the healthcare, out of the 48 countries studied, the U.S. ranks 46th, outpacing only Brazil and Serbia.
Upon this discovery, Oliver Alexander, senior at the University of Oregon studying business administration, and recent UO graduate Orion Falvey began working together to implement a better healthcare system for local rural areas.
“Orchid Health is about finding new ways to deliver primary care to rural areas because they are notoriously underserved,” Alexander said. “Over the past year we have done a lot of research to figure out why that is and the key stress points and how we can make it affordable for rural areas.”
The idea started with the Oregon Social Business Challenge in October 2012. Alexander and Falvey constructed a plan that would utilize a van to supply temporary healthcare to local rural areas. After winning second place in the competition and receiving an overwhelming amount of community support, the town of Oakridge reached out wanting their help.
“The more we talked to them the more we realized that rural areas don’t need healthcare every once and a while. They need permanent healthcare and that’s when we decided to open our own health clinic,” Alexander said. “During that year we had to solidify our business model talk to countless industry professionals, people from the state, local business professors, attorneys and accountants.”
They discovered that in order to make their model successful, the cost and quality of healthcare would have to differ from that which they were accustomed to. Instead, the clinic is designed to the eliminate profits that other board of directors would generally require.
“You can’t have the same cost and quality of healthcare in rural areas. You have to see a lot of people to keep the doors open in a rural area,” Falvey said. “You would have to see a patient almost every 10 minutes to be able to see enough people to keep the doors open. We are focusing on the everyday part of healthcare, being able to see your doctor when you need to, keeping people healthy and out of the hospitals and preventing surgeries.”
After speaking with insurance companies and working through the huge education process, Alexander and Falvey have recently unveiled their campaign to fund their clinic in Oakridge, Ore. The campaign is to provide more primary care which will account for about 90 percent of the community’s healthcare needs.
“I graduated last spring when Orchid was just an idea,” Falvey said. “I was looking at a few different business projects trying to figure out which was going to take off and over the summer we worked a lot, almost 12 hours a day, and that’s when I decided you know, this is happening, I am moving back to Eugene, I’m starting this business and it’s exciting. It’s really great.”