Global home health company picks Jacksonville as entry point for U.S. market (Courtesy of the Jacksonville Business Journal) — When executives at Dovida, a global home healthcare brand, began looking for the right city to introduce their first U.S.-branded location, they landed in Jacksonville.
Northeast Florida offered the perfect mix of attractions: a fast-growing older adult population, extensive healthcare system operations and the largest city by land mass. It also saw the need for better coordination among the area’s many caregiving providers.
“If it worked in Jacksonville, it should work everywhere in the U.S.,” Dovida Chief Growth Officer Chris Alford told the Business Journal.
The organization operates across six countries: Australia, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Switzerland. After acquiring home care franchise network A Place At Home in February, America became its seventh. Its North American headquarters operates from Omaha, Nebraska.
Soon, Dovida will unveil its flagship U.S. home care office at 5443 San Jose Blvd. (pictured above), established in partnership with locally based senior living advisors SilverLink Consulting.
It will launch July 30 with six care advisors — employees dedicated to coordinating care and guiding families through changing care needs.
Care advisors work alongside caregivers, intended to be embedded in Jacksonville’s vast micro-communities, Alford said. To that end, Dovida plans to hire caregivers and build teams across the city’s various neighborhoods.
Jacksonville will be smaller than is typical of Dovida’s global offices — which can range from 35 to 45 employees, Alford said — but it intends to grow.
“What has worked for us in six other countries, of course, we think will work in the U.S. as well,” he said. “… I don’t know that we have necessarily a dollar amount [of investment] but it will be the most time we’ve spent on any one city across our organization.”
Beyond establishing a blueprint for how Dovida will chart its U.S. expansion, the Jacksonville market is an opportunity for the company to help improve coordination among families, providers and caregivers.
There’s not shortage of home health agencies across Northeast Florida — anywhere from 100 to 200, Alford added. That can create discrepancies between various parties, he said, anecdotally recounting conversations with local sales teams and partners.
Dovida isn’t intended to be the end-all-be-all solution, but its leadership team believes the company can help “move the needle” in Jacksonville.
Florida has long been known as a go-to place for retirees, fueling the near-constant surge in the state’s aging population. That fact alone made Northeast Florida an attractive entry point for Dovida.
Here, Jacksonville is both a growth market and proving ground for Dovida that — if it can find success — could take it far beyond the First Coast.
Photo courtesy of Dovida