As Annette Bennett, a Richmond healthcare entrepreneur, accompanied her brother Daniel to treatments for stage IV colon cancer, the siblings often returned to the same topic.
How could infusion centers improve the patient experience?
Private rooms, for one, instead of flimsy curtains, would lend more privacy to patients and their guests. Heated massage chairs would also make a difference, since patients often feel cold during their treatments. Overall, the two agreed, an experience that felt more like going to a spa than to a hospital would go a long way toward improving the patient experience.
Earlier this year, Bennett turned that vision into a reality.
In February, Bennett and co-founders, Patrick Oliver and Lucien Roberts, opened Infusion Solutions, an independent infusion center serving Central Virginia patients. Intravenous (IV) therapy is often prescribed for individuals with autoimmune diseases.
With private suites, heated massage chairs, WiFi and television, healthy snacks, certified infusion nurses and on-site physicians, the center incorporates the features that Bennett and her brother once dreamed about.
One of the rooms is named for Daniel, who died in 2019.
“We want to create an environment that’s going to help them heal,” said Bennett, who is president of Infusion Solutions and also chief executive officer of Richmond-based Clinical Research Partners.
Typically, patients will receive a referral for infusion treatment from their healthcare provider and can then choose where to receive the treatment. Some infusions only take a few minutes, while others can take up to six hours.
Infusion Solutions is also providing Covid-19 patients with monoclonal antibody therapies on a separate floor from its other patients. The center doesn’t provide chemotherapy services, Bennett said.
She plans to expand Infusion Solutions to multiple locations in Virginia over the coming year. The next site, scheduled to open later this year, will be in Midlothian. Next is Norfolk in early 2022 and Fredericksburg in mid-2022.
Receiving treatment at an independent center is 53% more cost effective than in a hospital-based setting, Bennett said. Feedback from patients so far is that the experience is nicer than they’re used to in a hospital, too, she said.
It’s just the kind of experience she and her co-founders were aiming for when they designed Infusion Solutions with patients like Bennett’s brother in mind.
“We really wanted to be able to give them some hope,” she said.