“I want to be one of the 1 percent. But the problem with the 1 percent is there’s only 1 percent of them. If you want to build a business model that’s really far-reaching and world-changing, then it’s got to fit everybody.”
– Josh Umbehr of Atlas MD quoted in a Bloomberg Businessweek story this week on concierge medicine
WICHITA — After almost a decade and a half of working at Genesis Health Clubs, Wendy Williamson is opening her own Williamson Wellness Center.
“I’ve been very fortunate,” Williamson says. “This is just an opportunity to work for myself.”
Williamson has a doctorate in exercise science. She is a post-rehabilitation specialist and an advanced personal trainer.
“I have the privilege … and the opportunity to work with people who are recovering from illness and injury,” Williamson says. “My specialty is low back pain and orthopedic replacements.… I also work a lot with Parkinson’s disease.”
She’s opening her center in 2,529 square feet at the Shops at Tallgrass at 21st and Rock Road.
April Reed of Slawson Cos. and Christi Royse of J.P. Weigand & Sons handled the deal.
Williamson will open her business in early July.
“It’s just time to work for myself.”
WICHITA — Obstetrician and gynecologist Amy Short is leaving the Center for Women’s Health on North Webb Road to open her own practice, but it won’t be a traditional OBGYN clinic.
In fact, once Short’s pregnant patients deliver their babies, she won’t continue that service.
Instead, she’s going to focus on gynecology and functional medicine.
“You might just think of it as going to the root causes of imbalance, whether that’s chronic illness or hormone imbalance, and solving it from the ground up rather than dealing with it … once the disease process has already manifested,” Short says.
“I actually feel like the Lord has asked me to do this, and I think that there is a great opportunity for … me to find balance in my life … as well as to provide a focused niche for women that’s not currently available.”
Her Prairie Gynecology will open in April in 3,000 square feet at the Collective near 21st and Greenwich.
Short’s husband, Jeff, who will be the clinic’s business manager, says his wife has “identified, I think, a real unique niche in Wichita.”
“She’s seen an opportunity to help women.”
The Shorts say there are many fantastic OBGYNs in Wichita, but Amy Short’s practice will be more focused on a patient’s complete care.
“All of the systems of our body are interdependent,” Jeff Short says. “If one’s not functioning, you’ll see consequences in other places.”
WICHITA — After a 25-year career as a nurse at Via Christi Hospital on St. Francis, Marilynn Gump is now going to have her own company to be a nurse advocate.
“The fact is I thought I invented this, and then when I started looking, it is the coming thing,” she says.
Gump expects to have two kinds of clients for her Marilynn Gump Nurse Advocate business.
One kind is patients attempting to navigate their medical care with various specialists.
“The medical system has gotten so complex,” Gump says. “I would help a person formulate … pertinent questions and attend their office visits with them and make sure their questions are answered and that they understand their answers.”
Gump says in more than half the cases she sees, patients don’t understand what their doctors are telling them.
“Their interpretation of what they’re told is so often off the mark.”
Gump wants to help them understand and consider their options.
The second type of client Gump wants to help is the elderly – or their families who don’t live near them but want to ensure their care.
One thing I feel like I’m really good at is observing for changes,” Gump says.
She says she could attend appointments or stop by people’s homes to check on them.
WICHITA — A new 15,000-square-foot medical complex is under construction at 2135 N. Ridge Road behind Red Bean’s Bayou Grill and McDonald’s.
Cook Construction owner Larry Cook and his brother, Gerry, are building the complex with New Medical Health Care physicians Greg Lakin and William Simon.
“They’re actually having a presence in there, too,” Larry Cook says of Lakin and Simon. “They needed some more room.”
New Medical Health Care is at 2131 N. Ridge Road.
The new complex with have seven medical and dental tenants.
Cook says he’s still finalizing some of the leases.
He’s finishing the pad site now and expects the building to be ready in three months.
Look for more information on the tenants before then.
UPDATED — Advanced Pain Medicine Associates moved into 11,300 square feet at 3715 N. Oliver in January 2009 and now is expanding by adding another approximately 4,600 square feet.
“We do have some plans that we are working on right now,” says administrator Kim Talley.
She hopes expansion will be complete in the first quarter of 2012.
“That’s our goal.”
Physician Jon Parks founded the group in late 2000 after leaving Wesley Rehabilitation Hospital.
There are now three physicians, two physician assistants and a nurse practitioner who provide medication management, interventional procedures and implanted devices for pain control.
Business has grown, and the group is expanding services, too, though Talley says those details are still being worked out.
Advanced Pain Medicine Associates already expanded once in its new location with a larger parking lot eight months after moving in.
Talley says the group didn’t foresee the need for new space so soon.
“We did not expect to expand this quickly.”
WICHITA — Grene Vision Group is expanding in several markets.
“We’ve been busy,” says CFO Troy Biggs.
In Derby, the group is adding 1,700 square feet to its existing 3,200 square feet at Spring Creek.
The “economy down there seems to be doing well,” Biggs says. “We thought it was a good move.”
Chad Stafford with Occidental Management handled the deal.
In Andover, Grene Vision Group is moving to a newly renovated, larger site at 135 S. Andover Road.
The new 3,000 square feet will allow for a larger office and an expanded optical department.
The move will happen in the early part of June.
In Augusta, the group is moving within the same office park it’s currently in on Brookside Court just off of Ohio Street.
“We lost the lease with our landlord so it provided a great opportunity actually for us to build a new location right there,” Biggs says.
The new building, which will be ready in late September, will be 3,000 square feet.
Grene Vision Group has about 20 sites across Kansas with 42 physicians.
WICHITA — The almost 2-year-old Wichita BrightStar Care franchise has doubled its business this month thanks to Faith Home Health and Hospice narrowing its focus.
Texas-based Harden Healthcare purchased Wichita-based Faith Home Health and Hospice earlier this year.
The company is now focusing on hospice care and skilled nursing visits and has stopped doing home health services such as helping clients dress and eat.
BrightStar is picking up more than 90 percent of those clients. The company now has more than 100 clients.
“It’s a wonderful story for BrightStar because of the growth in our business,” says Bill Wagenbaur, who owns the business with Ann Dexter.
It’s an important story for former Faith Home Health and Hospice clients, too, he says.
“A big key to a successful transition . . . was that we also took on all of the employees who wanted to come over so they could stay with their patients,” Wagenbaur says. There’s “no break in continuity.”
UPDATED — One of the city’s best-known orthopedic surgeons has left the practice he co-founded to return to the group that originally hired him in Wichita.
John Schurman II joined Advanced Orthopaedic Associates in 1998 but left in 2002 to form the Kansas Joint & Spine Institute, where he’s been president until last week.
“I’m a surgeon, but I’m also a businessman,” Schurman says.
He says if you don’t treat a practice as a business, “Then all of a sudden you’re not viable as a business.”
Schurman says surgeons have to be fairly like-minded and work well together.
“Then, that’s going to be a successful unit.”
So does that mean he didn’t have that at the Kansas Joint and Spine Institute?
“Well, I think that you could imply that you have to have a common thought, a common pathway, and I thought I could achieve that better where I am now.”
Practice size, patient volume and number of orthopedic specialties at Advanced Orthopaedic Associates played a role in Schurman’s move.
That group has 14 physicians. Kansas Joint & Spine Institute has four partners.
His partners at Advanced Orthopaedic Associates are a “very forward thinking” business unit, Schurman says.
They’re opening a 3,000-square-foot west side office at Via Christi Hospital on St. Teresa.
WICHITA — Wichita-based EagleMed and Newton-based LifeTeam are not merging after all.
The Wichita Eagle first reported late last year that the competing air ambulance providers would merge.
“Circumstances are not conducive to join forces under the EagleMed brand at this time,” says EagleMed president Larry Bugg.
Originally, the companies expected the deal to close this quarter.
Bugg won’t elaborate on what happened except to say previously there was only a letter of intent. He says that during the due diligence phase, that’s when the deal fell apart.
“We’ll continue to look for opportunities to serve the citizens of Kansas.”