TPC delivers 2 million physio consultations to Australian seniors

By TRISTAN WHITE – Founder and CEO (‘Chief Enthusiasm Officer’) *

 

Helping seniors stay mobile, safe and happy is what The Physio Co’s team of physiotherapists does for its clients every day. 

Maybe you prefer a more energetic description: helping seniors set and smash their meaningful health goals! However you describe it, we help older people to maintain their independence, regain self-confidence and connect with others in a caring and fun way.

And it’s this commitment to our clients that has helped The Physio Co team to reach an amazing milestone recently: achieving our decade-long target (we call it our ‘10-year obsession’) of delivering 2,000,000 unique and memorable consultations. Correct – that’s TWO MILLION!

That big goal was bravely set way back in 2009, five years after TPC was established, when we had a team of 20 TPC team members (‘TPCers’) in Melbourne and Geelong.

Since setting that daunting goal, we got to work developing The Physio Co in a way that would make our target achievable, while maintaining our high standards of care. In fact, we’ve grown the quality and quantity of everything TPC does.

The result: over those memorable 11½ years, we have delivered an average of 174,000 consultations a year to our clients.

Our dedicated team is committed to helping seniors stay mobile, safe and happy – it’s ingrained in the way we work. It’s our core purpose, it’s why we exist – and that’s why those clients often become our friends.

Let me give you a case study of one of our clients: Joan Dukes lives in an aged care facility in Melbourne’s south-east.  With the help and support of Zara, an energetic physiotherapist from The Physio Co team, Joan (pictured above) is working towards smashing her goal:

“To improve my strength and the distance I can walk so that I will be able to
walk around the facility and stop to talk to people with confidence.”

Everyday activities, like getting around at home or stopping to chat with a neighbour, can get harder and harder as we get older. But it doesn’t have to be impossible. You could say we help everyday people do everyday things.

With the right support, what seems physically and mentally impossible becomes possible again – and Joan is just one of the thousands of seniors who are being supported.

The Physio Co Story

Way back in 2004, when I was a recently graduated physiotherapist with a dream to build a team of people that would help me to care for older people, I started working 12 hours a week at a tired and old-fashioned aged care community in Preston, in Melbourne’s northern suburbs.

At that home, I met people who have had a lifelong impact on me: George and his wife Mavis; George’s roommate Les; Marjorie from room 14; Reika, the facility manager; the committed nurses, carers, kitchen and laundry people; and so many more faces, stories and connections.

In the 16 years since, that early dream has progressed.  The Physio Co grew to a 150-strong team that visited seniors wherever they call home, in six states and territories of Australia.

Relationships, connections and memories

Far more important than our consultations milestone being achieved are the connections, relationships and memories created for our wonderful clients, their families and our dedicated team.

For just a moment, consider the thousands and thousands of conversations, interactions, smiles, jokes, tears, frustrations, occasional repeated stories and goals that have been smashed as those 2,000,000 consultations have been delivered – it’s mind-blowing!

An incredible amount of work has been done by 1000s of clients and 100s of TPCers that has helped us meet our core purpose: to help seniors stay mobile, safe and happy.

Celebration

Celebrating milestones and success is part of our DNA at The Physio Co.

One of our key motivators is summed up by this simple sentence: We set high standards, have great attention to detail and like to impress, therefore, we take the time to celebrate milestones and successes.

The TPC team catching up and celebrating via Zoom!

It’s important to recognise the hard work that goes into achieving success – taking time to step back and savour the moment. With that in mind, when we hit this 10-year milestone (in 11½ years!) we had a virtual all-company party to connect, reflect and celebrate.

In our Zoom call, the TPC team and I reflected on our amazing clients, and shared our stories of successes, challenges and future dreams.

What it means

As the founder and CEO who has been part of the journey from an initial idea all the way through to celebration, I’m feeling proud, relieved, impressed, excited, grateful and a mixture of other emotions as I write.

There are so many stories to tell, from George and Mavis in the earliest days of TPC; Joan and Zara working together through a pandemic; to Paula and Sue from our Seniors Smashing Goals series.

I’d like to acknowledge, thank and celebrate with all the people who have helped and supported this journey so far.

That early dream was to bring together what I imagined would be a six to 10-person team that would inspire me to do my best work. It turns out that since 2009, there have been 405 TPC team members who have contributed, plus so many more partners, husbands, wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, friends, advisors and cheerleaders who I’d love to acknowledge.

What’s next

What’s even more exciting is that TPC – in many ways – is only just getting started.

We have a new 10-year target and a stronger focus than ever before on helping our clients set and smash meaningful goals that make the everyday seem extraordinary.

Despite the challenges of 2020, there is a real sense of purpose for everything we are doing, and will continue to do with our clients: one-to-one or one-to-many, online or offline.

Helping seniors set and smash their meaningful goals is what we do.  And we’ll keep doing it.  Oh, and Joan, Zara will be with you on Thursday 🙂

 

* TRISTAN WHITE

Founder and CEO (‘Chief Enthusiasm Officer’)