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GrowWise Health in the Comox Valley. A LIFT business profile

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The business of medical cannabis is growing – fast – and has many facets. One of these is patient and physician education about the science and the therapeutic benefits of medical cannabis. Toronto-based GrowWise Health provides this service. In 2017 Denise Ropp partnered with GrowWise Health to bring medical cannabis education to the Comox Valley and Vancouver Island.

LIFT: What is the business of GrowWise Health?

Denise: Medical cannabis is a new and exciting area, and there are a lot of unknowns, and lots of new research. Our role is to provide education and support – for both patients seeking help, and physicians who want to learn more.

Your first step, when you visit our centre, is to meet with a physician who actually listens to you about what you are trying to accomplish with regards to your health. GrowWise Nurse Educators then provide education about medicinal cannabis: licensed producers, safety, dosing, strains, compounds – that kind of thing. After that, we’re here to give you ongoing support to reach your own, personalized goals.

LIFT: What makes your business “special” or different from what others are doing with regard to medical cannabis?

Denise: Let me be clear, because there is often confusion around this, we are NOT a medical cannabis dispensary. Our business is supporting patients in their healing journey, without charging extra fees.

GrowWise started about three years ago. The founders recognized that more and more physicians were authorizing medical cannabis, but patients were being left on their own to fulfill their prescription. With an ordinary script, a patient would be able to walk into a pharmacy and ask for help – the pharmacist will tell you what time of day to take your medication, what side effects to be aware, and will fulfill the prescription for you. That doesn’t exist for cannabis patients.

So GrowWise partnered with a half dozen Licensed Producers – companies authorized by Health Canada to legally producer cannabis for medical purposes – to help connect patients with the support they need to be successful with their treatment. GrowWise nurses are embedded in clinics where there are physicians authorizing cannabis – they work in pain clinics, fibromyalgia centres, family practices, and cannabis clinics like White Cedar here in the Comox Valley. The physicians bill MSP like any other clinic, and the education service is provided free-of-charge to patients.

LIFT: Who are the people that will most benefit from what GrowWise Health is offering?

Denise: Most of our patients are in their 50s and 60s. Active adults highly motivated to improve their health. But really, our target market is anyone who seeking an alternative to traditional pharmaceutical solutions. And so we have patients of all ages, from all walks of life.

LIFT: What inspired you to start the Comox Valley office?

Denise: I saw an opportunity to provide access to a natural health solution to the community. There are a lot of people for whom traditional pharmaceuticals have failed. This is a choice in healthcare, an alternative to traditional solutions. I must say, this is not about getting “high.” Most of our patients have not been recreational cannabis users. Many are unfamiliar with any type of cannabis. They’re people looking for a solution to health issues, a solution that’s eluded them in the traditional healthcare system to date.

We have a lot of patients that have been curious about this medication. There are also those who have tried using medicinal cannabis and are not aware of finer details about strains or components, or even how to properly dose themselves. They need proper education and support. I saw this opportunity as a way to support people on their healing journey.

LIFT: What / who have been the biggest factors in the growth/ success of your business?

Denise: Number one is our patients! GrowWise has worked with over 6000 patients across Canada to date. Hearing their success stories is incredibly motivating for us as a company, as well as for the greater community. These patients go on to tell their family and friends about their success, they share their story with their family physician, their colleagues, and so on, and the message spreads from there.

Another key piece that has been incredibly helpful is the expansion in research. It feels like every day there is a new study released about how cannabis might help – about how it is displacing opioid prescriptions, or how it is improving quality of life for our veterans. We have so much anecdotal evidence that points to cannabis be a valuable treatment options, but in order for healthcare practitioners to fully embrace cannabis, rigorous, academic research is needed.

Finally, the federal government’s decision to legalize cannabis for adult-use this summer has really helped to break down the stigma around cannabis for medical patients. All of a sudden, cannabis is everywhere. It’s on every newspaper cover, on the radio, in magazines – it has become far less taboo, and that has encouraged patients to take the first step and talk to their doctor about it.

LIFT: If you had one piece of advice for someone starting a business on Vancouver Island / in the Comox Valley today, what would it be?

Denise: Get out and network!

CONTACT
For more information about GrowWise Health in the Comox Valley:

Telephone: 250-941-4999
Facebook Messenger: https://www.facebook.com/Comox.3322
GrowWise Health in the Comox Valley is a LIFT member business (aka LIFT VIP). If you are a LIFT member ask Denise and the team at GrowWise Health about the 10% discount on hemp-based products like Bully Bites (doggie snacks), Canna-9, lip balm, body cream, and facial serum.

For more information about LIFT and how we help grow Vancouver Island businesses, please see https://liftstartups.ca or call Founder & CEO Hans Peter Meyer (HPM) at 250-792-1408.

The #WeAreYQQ brand: From the Comox Valley and proud of it!

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Where is here? Here is the Comox Valley. Who is here? Talent.

On July 20-22, 2016 the Comox Valley Art Gallery hosted the Where is Here? symposium. The symposium focussed on the issue of defining where we are, and who “we” are in this place. CVAG’s Sharon Karsten says this is an important part of community economic development. I agree. That’s why branding our emerging talent economy is so important: because our individual talents (in business, the arts, and more) are the building blocks for the emerging economy that will take us beyond our current economic challenges.

Branding talent economies

How do we brand talent economies? Here’s an example from Vancouver. WeAreYVR was launched several years ago to brand and map Vancouver’s emerging tech talent sector. I like the WeAreYVR example. It’s strong. It provokes curiosity. It’s inclusive. It’s geo-locatable, and distinct.

Following suit, I created #WeAreYQQ to brand our Comox Valley talent economy. #WeAreYQQ  tells the world, “From the Comox Valley and proud of it!” It’s a tool, generated to serve our talent economy. Here’s how it works.

Provocative / clickable

Love them or hate them, hashtags are provocative. They make people stop and think. Using a hashtag also means the brand is searchable (clickable) on most social networks, making it easy to see who’s doing what. #WeAreYQQ also raises questions like: Who is “we?” What is “YQQ?”

Inclusive

As a search term, #WeAreYQQ can’t belong to any one person, business, or agency. It belongs to everyone who uses it. The “we” of #WeAreYQQ is anyone who wants to use the brand to attach to their work – or to the work of people and organizations who are doing good stuff in our region. I routinely tag people doing good stuff with the phrase “#WeAreYQQ ★.” It’s my way of saying “heroes of the Comox Valley” – but in a concise, branded, and collaborative way that works well on social media.

Geo-locatable and distinct

#WeAreYQQ uses the IATA code for Comox Airport (YQQ). IATA codes are often used by businesses and organizations in other locales because they’re short, distinct markers that cannot be confused with other locales. (For example, the “CV” brand is great for locals. For the rest of the world, the people we’re branding for, it most often means “curriculum vitae” – or more close to home, Cowichan Valley.) IATA codes only point to distinct locales. Just as WeAreYVR = Vancouver and WeAreYEG = Edmonton, WeAreYQQ = Comox Valley.

Is it working?

Search via Google, Twitter, Facebook – and especially Instagram. #WeAreYQQ is being used by all manner of creatives and entrepreneurs – painters, musicians, fish charter operators, bakeries, blacksmiths, and more. They’re using #WeAreYQQ to brand what they’re doing in and beyond the Comox Valley. By using it, they’re inviting others to click through to discover a community of creatives and entrepreneurs in the Comox Valley.

Collaboration and competition

Generating a talent economy is about collaboration. It’s also about competition. We compete with other regions endowed with natural and cultural amenities, relatively “affordable” housing, etc. Having a brand helps differentiate us. It also shows that we’re serious about supporting our talent economy.

How we provide support is by growing and sustaining trust and grassroots collaboration. This is already part of the culture of some organizations and businesses in the Comox Valley. Elevate the Arts Festival is one of my favourite examples. Having an inclusive brand like #WeAreYQQ makes collaboration easier. Here’s what I mean:

Whenever anyone uses the #WeAreYQQ tag they are identifying with and amplifying our talent economy. By following, retweeting, commenting on, and reposting #WeAreYQQ stories – in any media – people are extending the impact of the brand, and the reach or visibility of our Comox Valley talent economy. When we support businesses, organizations, and artists that are self-identifying with our Comox Valley talent economy, we are directly helping to grow the local talent economy.

Growing our talent economy

Macro level support from agencies and institutions is a positive when it comes to growing a talent economy, and it’s great to see movement after the pot got stirred a couple of summers back. Our small tech talent pool now is on the radar. But our talent pool is much larger than our tech sector, and the evidence of decades of community economic development, and more recent examples of “startup communities,” is that what’s most important is an abundance of diverse grassroots, micro-level activities – across all sectors. For the Comox Valley, that means we need to grow our capacity to support entrepreneurs in the arts and in food, big time.

At LIFT Comox Valley (formerly the #WeAreYQQ Project) we launched the #WeAreYQQ brand as a tool for grassroots creatives and entrepreneurs to use. It’s your brand, not ours. You are the people creating the home-grown economy reflecting the values and aspirations of the people who live here. By using the brand you’re making this place – this “here” – visible as an emerging talent-driven economy. Let us know how we can help. That’s what LIFT Comox Valley is all about: Leading, Inspiring, and Fuelling Talent to grow a new economy in the Comox Valley.

Let’s make this shift happen!

hpm
for LIFT Comox Valley

@WeAreYQQ on Twitter