Health IT, Startups, Patient Engagement

A profile of a healthcare unicorn

Chicago-based Outcome Health has reached the pinnacle of its 11-year existence: It is now valued at $5 billion. Co-founder and CEO Rishi Shah discussed the startup's future and why it strives to empower every patient.

unicorn, origami

The healthcare unicorn is a rare breed compared to its tech counterparts. A December report listed only eight healthcare unicorns in the U.S. (minus Theranos of course, whose unicorn status has gone poof) to win that highly-coveted status.

Chicago-based Outcome Health (previously ContextMedia) is such a recently minted one that it didn’t even make that list. But like many of the other unicorns in healthcare and beyond, leveraging technology is key to its $5 billion valuation.

Founded in 2006, the startup is bringing technology to the humble physician’s office, where in many cases, the fax machine still rules the day.

“Whenever somebody imagines a doctor’s office, we want them to imagine it with our technology,” said Rishi Shah, co-founder and CEO of Outcome Health, in a recent phone interview.

The current reality though is far removed from Shah’s ideal. Patients have the world’s information at their fingertips through their smartphones, but step inside an average physician’s office and they will be greeted by brochures, pamphlets, books and perhaps a desktop if they are lucky. No cutting-edge IT tools here. 

This lack of technology is only one part of the equation that keeps them from feeling informed. Because physicians are busy and overbooked, many patients only have a few minutes at each appointment to discuss treatment options with their doctor.

“It’s more stressful than the SAT,” Shah said. “You only have 10 minutes [with the doctor] and whatever you decide, you have to live with for the next three months. You can’t change it until you and your doctor meet again.”

This problem is precisely what the unicorn wants to fix by providing educational content through digital screens to patients at each step in the doctor’s office.

Outcome Health’s Digital Waiting Room Screen shows patients specialty-specific content as they wait to see their physician. The Exam Room Tablet delivers personalized information to patients before they consult their provider, while the Infusion Room Tablet provides patients with support while they receive infusion treatment.

Outcome Health’s Digital Anatomy Board

Its Digital Anatomy Board goes inside the exam room as a way to replace paper pamphlets. Instead of relying on posters to explain certain conditions and treatment options, providers can utilize a large digital screen to show patients interactive anatomical models.

The company’s website highlights how one physician has used this tool to reduce the time to explain a urological procedure to a patient to less than five minutes from 12 minutes. This is especially important given shorter interactions that patients have with physicians.

“A person with a condition might spend a whole year managing it, but they’d only get 40 minutes of face time with their doctor once a month,” Shah said.

Doctors are also acutely aware of the compressed appointment times and the need to engage patients better. That is one reason for Outcome Health expanding the specialties it is targeting.

For the first four years, the startup focused specifically on endocrinologists and diabetes — Shah’s father is an endocrinologist, and he and co-founder Shradha Agarwal both have diabetic family members. But since then, it has expanded to envelop a broad line of specialties, including primary care and oncology. The goal, however, has remained the same: use technology to improve patient adherence and inspire better patient outcomes.

It isn’t the only company with such a mission. Patient Point seeks to engage healthcare consumers at the point of care, and large tech companies like Google also want to make their mark in the space.

Manoj Mehta, a gastroenterologist based in Wilmette, Illinois, has seen the benefits of the startup’s technology first hand. A year and a half ago, he moved to a new office and was excited to take advantage of utilizing new, technology-based approaches in his practice.

His office utilizes multiple Outcome Health solutions, including the Waiting Room Screen and the Anatomy Board, the latter of which has been particularly useful in communicating with patients about their conditions and upcoming procedures. 

“A picture’s worth a thousand words,” he said. “I can pull up a diagram and show them three-dimensionally what’s happening.”

Mehta added that he has discussed the Chicago company with other providers.

“Everybody has the same first question, which is about the advertising,” said Mehta, who has no financial relationship with the startup. “I find it to be completely non-intrusive. The content on the [Digital Anatomy Board] particularly is not really perceived as advertising in any way — it’s just health information.”

While that may be true, Outcome Health makes it pretty clear that the company’s tools make it easier for healthcare brands to reach target patient populations

One patient that has been pleasantly surprised by the company’s products is Sara Gorman, who was diagnosed with systemic lupus in 2001 at the age of 26. After a few years of attempting to push past the illness, she rethought her strategy. Instead of fighting against lupus, she chose to live her best life in spite of the disease. One big challenge was feeling alone. 

“There wasn’t anything on the Internet that spoke to me,” she said in a phone interview. “I thought, ‘I’m never going to be able to find a community of people that know what I’m going through.'”

But in the summer of 2015, she came across the startup’s products. While at an appointment with her rheumatologist, she was surprised to see a standalone tablet and began exploring the different tabs. Gorman was happy to find a section on lupus.

“I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, somebody cares about lupus!'” she recalled, adding that she went on to write about the experience on her blog, Despite Lupus. Gorman appeared in an Outcome Health ad and was reimbursed for her travel expenses but is not otherwise compensated by Outcome Health.

As the company has made strides among patients and physicians, another group has begun to pay attention — investors.

In late May, it closed its first-ever financing round, gaining $500 million from a plethora of investors including Leerink Transformation Partners, Goldman Sachs Investment Partners, Pritzker Group Venture Capital, Balyasny Asset Management and CapitalG, Alphabet’s growth equity investment fund, among others.

“It was our seed round of funding, as we joke,” Shah quipped.

Todd Cozzens, co-founder and managing partner of Leerink Transformation Partners, said his company had heard “glowing endorsements” of Outcome Health’s technology from various physicians.

“The differentiated way the platform is able to interact with their audience and get people more deeply engaged in their care is the reason we invested in Outcome Health,” he said in an email. “We’ve seen increases in patient satisfaction as surveyed by Press Ganey, and many doctors and healthcare executives we interviewed see it as instrumental in educating patients because it supports increased compliance and adherence.”

Through the investment, the Chicago startup hopes to achieve its latest goal: expanding from 20 percent of physician practices to 70 percent by 2020.

Though the aim is lofty, Shah remains confident in his company’s ability to achieve it, partly because of increased consolidation in the marketplace.

“We have some of the biggest healthcare systems in the country on our network,” he said. “As they buy up other practices, we’re going organically into some of their other sites.”

The startup currently has more than 600 employees. Although it said it has historically been profitable, Outcome Health declined to share exact numbers on revenue and profitability. A May article in Crain’s Chicago Business said it had more than $130 million in revenue in 2016 and sustains an operating profit margin of approximately 40 percent.

When asked about Outcome Health’s unicorn status, Shah said the company has only just begun its trek toward achieving success. The pressure comes both from this dream and from within the startup.

“Outcome Health is less than 1 percent of the way on our journey to ubiquitously bring health intelligence to every decision that patients and healthcare providers make together,” he said via email.

Photos: WinsomeMan, Getty Images and Outcome Health

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