Building a Healthcare IT Company out of Georgia: Reach Health Founder Grant Kohler (Part 2)

Grant Kohler: By the time they would get into the medical center, they would be outside that window of treatment for this particular drug. The Department of Neurology was investigating how to treat these patients out in their home communities and treat them fast enough so that they will still be within this three-hour window for this drug to be administered.

We started looking at different technologies. The reality is that the doctors need to be able to see and talk to the patient, and see medical imaging around that patient to make this decision of giving this particular drug to the patient. Conceptually, that’s how it started in the Medical College of Georgia (MCG). This was around 2002. Between 2002 and 2005, we did an alpha project. We

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Building a Healthcare IT Company out of Georgia: Reach Health Founder Grant Kohler (Part 1)

Spun out from university research, Reach Health is an interesting case study in building a company around concepts like Telemedicine and remote healthcare.

Sramana Mitra: Steve and Grant, I would love to have your back stories. Where were you born and raised, and in what kind of circumstances? What paths did you follow in terms of college and so forth? How did your paths intersect?

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Thought Leaders in Healthcare IT: Girish Navani, CEO of eClinicalWorks (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: I experienced this with my grandmother about five years ago. This was in India. She was in a coma essentially and she was not responding. It was about 18 days. We would have been happy to let her go but no one would let us do that. She was 87 years old.

Girish Navani: I won’t say it’s easier, but some of them are more rational. I don’t know about this one because I have actually struggled with it internally. I like to tout the idea of health and wellness and I have somehow tried to avoid such situations. Maybe the person inside me doesn’t know how to react when faced with a decision like this myself. I would always say that if it’s better for the patient in terms of pain and outcomes, then it’s an easier one. If it is not, then which way do you go?

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Thought Leaders in Healthcare IT: Girish Navani, CEO of eClinicalWorks (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: Is there anything else that you want to discuss?

Girish Navani: I think we will see a different healthcare system where the payer is not necessarily the one clearing a bill without telling you someday what it costs. I’ll tell you something new that we’re doing next year. We just went live with it inside our company. I think there’s a business model for it outside of eClinicalWorks. We mandated that our insurance company give us our claim files, which was a tough one to get. It got to a point where it was frustratingly being ignored. They would say, “I don’t have it today. I’ll give it to you day after tomorrow.” It went on for about four months until it came to a point where I said, “Either I get it or I’m going to another company.” We got our files then.

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Thought Leaders in Healthcare IT: Girish Navani, CEO of eClinicalWorks (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: They have other roles to play in medical imaging. In the equipment sector, they’re big.

Girish Navani: Yes, not in healthcare IT. This is the fun part and also the nerve-wracking part. As an entrepreneur, you have no fear because you have nothing to lose.

Sramana Mitra: Given your structure, what are your thoughts about acquisitions? One way that people deal with that threat is to bring in people from the bottom.

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Thought Leaders in Healthcare IT: Girish Navani, CEO of eClinicalWorks (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Relatively speaking, we are very young. Having an exit and getting a chunk of money and then what? You can’t eat money.

Girish Navani: Very true. Then what? People ask the question, “Girish, why don’t you do this?” Then I ask the same question you asked, “Then what?” None of those answers have been exciting. I have found a cause at healthcare. In healthcare, there’s a purpose behind – we can help somebody live a better life, live a healthier life, or get diagnosed sooner because technology created that platform. Beyond profitability, we’ve done something for society even though it’s a for-profit and not a non-profit. >>>

Thought Leaders in Healthcare IT: Girish Navani, CEO of eClinicalWorks (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: That’s great. I’m actually working on a book on Unicorn Companies right now. I would love to include you in that. The definition of this Unicorn Company is billion-dollar exit. The truth is if you were to exit in the market today, you would be over a billion dollar in valuation easily.

Girish Navani: Easily. Maybe, multi-billion.

Sramana Mitra: It’s probably more like $3 billion plus valuation. You’ve probably seen my work in the last four years that we’ve launched One Million by One Million. Our philosophy is entrepreneurship equals customers, revenues, and profits. Financing and exit are optional. That’s a very simple and powerful change in the way entrepreneurship is viewed. >>>

Thought Leaders in Healthcare IT: Girish Navani, CEO of eClinicalWorks (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: If you were to look at the physician market, what percentage of the physician market has made that shift to the second-generation system?

Girish Navani: That’s actually an intriguing question. I think it’s still in the early phases, early in the sense that we are 18 months into that cycle.

Sramana Mitra: So probably less than 10%?

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