Here’s How to Become an Entrepreneurial Nurse

Entrepreneurs see change as the norm and healthy. Usually, they do not bring about the change themselves. But—and this defines entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship—the entrepreneur searches for changes, responds to them, and exploits them as an opportunity.

The Reason You Are Not An Entrepreneurial Nurse

For instance, you ought to spend more time thinking about opportunities in your community. Whereas if you do not, you may suffer because of this. And this neglect is only a symptom.

You also disdain tomorrow because you can not get ahead of today. That, too, is a symptom.

However, the actual disease is a lack of knowledge and a system for exploiting these opportunities.

You feel caught in a “rat race” because of how you’re affected by the vagaries of Nigeria’s political economy.

You know that writing exams like IELTS to travel or “Japa” to the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, and so forth, rarely achieves right and lasting results. (I’m going to write about that in a subsequent post).

Yet, you write and re-write those exams while consulting with many travel agents.

I have news for you, what you are looking for in Sokoto is in your shokoto trousers!

Nursing Training Without Entrepreneurial Skills

I’ve noticed most nurses live and work in a bubble. I deduced this from their responses when I proposition them about the opportunities in their environment.

Most tell me the pay/reward for trying to exploit these opportunities will not be commensurate with their time, training, and status.

Did you know that 170 million Nigerians are without health insurance? Let me stretch that logic by saying that 170 million Nigerians are outside the formal healthcare sector.

That includes the entire segment of Nigerians earning ₦137,430 (USD 241.11) per year. This translates into 83 million people, according to The World Bank’s Living Standard Measurement Study.

So, you have a total addressable informal healthcare market of 170 million, including a target market of 83 million people in the underserved segment.

Why are you struggling to serve the 30 million Nigerians in the formal healthcare sector when there is a much larger informal sector?

I remember a conversation with a nurse who lives in a densely populated area of Lagos.

I told her there were massive opportunities in the home delivery of primary healthcare to the people in her community. Especially those who do not have the information, inclination, resources, or access to formal healthcare services.

And that her competition was not hospitals and clinics in her community. But auxiliary nurses, chemist shops, drug hawkers, and traditional health practitioners.

I’m sure you can guess what her response was to my claim. We ended the conversation because I couldn’t get her to reason with me.

The Case of an Auxiliary Nurse “Cashing out in the Trenches”

I was told of an auxiliary nurse who is a widow with three teenage children (two females and a male).

An analysis of her clientele showed she provides home healthcare services to over 137 households within a one-mile radius of her residence. Assuming each has five people, this translates into 685 clients. That is a lot of home care gigs and cash flow!

No wonder she still gives each of her children a monthly stipend of ₦20,000, although they earn daily income from their own artisanal trades.

My source also told me she will soon complete her building project in Lagos.

Ideally (by law and standard nursing practice) she is operating illegally and isn’t providing value to clients.

In reality, her clients trust her to always be available to provide care at brief notice.

In Conclusion

Your work in a hospital is not entrepreneurship. Neither is selling clothes and accessories on WhatsApp or other social media platforms.

You must shift resources (both skills and material) out of areas of lower productivity and yield into higher ones.

To become an entrepreneurial nurse, apply simple techniques like asking the following questions:

1. What is value to people in the informal sector of our healthcare industry?
2. How do I standardize the home healthcare service?
3. How do I design the process and tools to deliver this standardized service?
4. What kind of training do I need to provide the service based on its analysis?

You’ll significantly increase your capabilities after finding answers to the questions.

Remember to use The ResearchGate Study of the four factors of outpatients satisfaction as the benchmark for your services:

1. Professional care.
2. Availability of services.
3. Waiting time.
4. Satisfaction with laboratory services.

And by taking marketable actions, you will create new markets and new customers.

This is the template for exploiting home healthcare opportunities in your community. And this is how you become an entrepreneurial nurse.