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The patient transport vans at Take Care Private Duty Home Health Care have doubled as a mobile advertising vehicle for more than a decade.
But after Sarasota-based Take Care owner and founder Sue Wise recently heard from several clients, she made a move to transform the company's transportation operation. “We've always been so proud of our vans. People always knew them,” Wise tells Coffee Talk. “But it became clear to me that this was the wrong approach.”
The logos on the vans, Wise heard, were anything from a potential violation of clients' privacy to a tacky advertisement. Not a good report considering Take Care, a $15-million company, provides home health care services for elderly patients, a hyper-competitive field on the Gulf Coast.
So, gone are the white Dodge Sprinters with the corporate logos. In their place: a trial 2011 black Ford Transit Connect van, with a corporate marking so small Wise says you have to be right in front of the van to see it. “It's very sleek and inconspicuous,” says Wise.
Take Care has used the Ford van for about a month and Wise says the response from clients has been overwhelmingly positive. Wise wants to test the service in the field before she replaces all four Take Care Sprinters.
The Ford vans cost less and use less gas than the Sprinters. Moreover, Wise says concierge-like service is quickly becoming the norm, not the anomaly in health care. Says Wise: “People are going to demand a greater service of a higher caliber.”
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