Vyana is a Sanskrit word meaning an expanding life force or breath. Since breath is essential for health and Maya Jobanputra, ND, believes that health can be restored by addressing basic, core concepts, this term seemed appropriate to represent her vision of a multidisciplinary clinic. Vyana Wellness, located in Waterloo, Ontario, opened in 2009 and currently over 150 patients walk through its doors on a weekly basis. Maya’s intention of opening a clinic was to create a safe, inviting, and healing environment where patients can feel at home. She wanted this feeling of comfort to extend to the practitioners of Vyana as well so that all staff could share the space and utilize it as their own in an effort to foster positivity, growth, and creativity. She notes that too often health clinics build their business models around the owner, often to the neglect of individual practitioners. Therefore, Vyana’s goal is to provide a sense of community not only for patients, but also staff.
To meet the specific and varied needs of the public while successfully cultivating a community feeling, Vyana felt that it was necessary to provide a wide array of services, including naturopathic medicine, chiropractic, osteopathic manipulative therapy, acupuncture, massage therapy, counseling, reiki, bodytalk, bowen therapy, and life coaching. The team of Vyana Wellness that delivers these diverse services is comprised of a clinic administrator and eight practitioners.
The facility is 1600 square feet of utilized floor space with six treatment rooms. Unique to Vyana is a large multipurpose room measuring roughly 275 square feet that is used for yoga classes. These classes are offered for a minimal fee to increase the scope of offerings available to the public. This space is also used to host free workshops open to the public. Collaboration among practitioners to deliver these educational sessions is encouraged since Vyana strongly believes that health and illness are multi-dimensional. It is also within this multipurpose room that Vyana hosts “Fix-it” days where the clinic doors are opened to the public on designated weekends. All practitioners are available to offer free consultations for anyone who would like to learn how to optimize health. Thus far, these “Fix-it” days have proven very successful. Vyana plans to expand the use of its versatile multipurpose room in an effort to strengthen the sense of community within the clinic. Long-term goals are to offer a full yoga schedule, relaxation classes, support groups, and a broadened scope of seminars and trainings. Vyana is also in possession of an additional 1600 square feet of space that can be utilized as expansion occurs.
The facility boasts a diverse dispensary, offering products from such companies as Ascenta, Genestra, Metagenics, Bioclinic, Mediherb, and Pascoe and there are plans to expand in the near future. Vyana also provides natural and non-toxic personal health products, such as body wash, shampoo, and conditioners since quality skin care is an important component of a healthy lifestyle. A number of integrative tests are made available to patients, the most popular being IgG food sensitivity, salivary hormone, and various blood panels (i.e., thyroid, complete blood count, etc).
Vyana focuses marketing efforts online. Google AdWords offers pay-per-click advertising with local distribution. When people search on Google using one of Vyana’s designated keywords, their ad appears next to the search results. The clinic also regularly updates its website with news, recipes, and YouTube videos while providing links to its monthly newsletters. In line with the goal of creating a community feeling, Vyana is working to create an online community through regular Facebook and Twitter updates. The clinic is finding that these social media are providing a good solid foundation for a thriving online community. In fact, Vyana has found that about half of the new patients coming through its doors are coming from internet marketing and half are coming from referrals. Each practitioner provides input with these marketing methods as equality of services is a key concept highlighted at Vyana.
IHP is grateful to the team at Vyana Wellness for allowing us to profile their clinic. Although the clinic has only been in operation for a little more than two years, it is quickly establishing an excellent reputation. While nurturing and encouraging their increasing community, we expect many successes for this eclectic group of practitioners.
