By Sally McMahon
Medical News recently spoke with local healthcare innovators who discussed what inspired them to join the startup community, what problems they are trying to solve, challenges their companies face and more. Below are the highlights.
Medical News: What inspired you to join the startup community?
Brian Olivier, Founder
Gluconfidence
There is a very open and welcoming culture in the Louisville startup community. I found that there were many mentors and other entrepreneurs willing to meet and provide introductions and connections as soon as I asked for help. Our mission at Gluconfidence is a personal passion of mine, and when I decided to pursue it, I found there was a strong support network to provide guidance and share where I could find resources. My biggest take away was to find the group of people in this space, start networking and ask for help.
Natalie Davis, MD, Co-founder
PreventScripts
I met Brandi Harless on a prior healthcare project when she was working at Entrepaducah. As I was seeing overweight parents and teenagers in my rural practice in Benton, Kentucky, it struck me my inability as a physician to help patients lose weight and follow my dietary instructions that I gave them in our brief face to face visits. When patients walked out the door, they forgot everything I said, only to return the next visit five pounds heavier.
Back then patients were starting to use consumer apps to lose weight, but I had no access to that behavior change and usage data. Nor did I create the value. So, we really started to see the potential for mobile to influence patient health behaviors. We were looking for a way to scale behavior change improvements across patient populations. We wanted to identify and reverse early lifestyle diseases like diabetes and hypertension.
Simultaneously, we wanted to help primary care physicians such as myself to identify those patients who are at risk and intervene reducing specialist visits and further increase the high value that our primary care providers in health care provide to our patients and families. Since we were building patient mobile iPhone and android apps, direct messaging with EHR’s for HIPAA compliance and provider convenience and creating remote monitoring tech and patient behavior change tech, we recruited experienced software architect and successful serial entrepreneur Jay Campbell to be our CTO. So, we are a three-founder company.
Thynk Health
In 2015, a team of radiologists acted on their frustrations with the inefficiencies surrounding lung cancer screening (LCS) . Practicing in a geographical area experiencing some of the highest rates of lung cancer in the nation, they saw lives cut short too often due to a lack of data management. The manual, human entry of patient data took too long and was prone to error resulting in inaccurate and incomplete information. This caused, among other things, at-risk, eligible patients to go unscreened simply because there was not enough capacity, or they had fallen through the cracks of a complex and overburdened system.
One major issue the team focused on was correcting the process of lung cancer screening programs’ data quality and reporting, which often required staffing several people to manually read patient records from disparate sources and re-enter them into data registries. This process was so time-consuming, that patient follow-ups and addressing incidental findings were being neglected. They knew they would need to completely automate the data abstraction process so that healthcare professionals could focus on patient care and outcomes rather than on databases.
As a result, they partnered with a team of engineers and began working on structured reporting using natural language processing technology. Realizing how difficult it can be to change a process, they focused on extracting and analyzing data being input into existing workflows that providers are comfortable with.
Today, the Thynk Health platform uses natural language processing and artificial intelligence to automate the data entry and data collection processes, thus improving the efficiency and effectiveness of lung cancer screening programs at hospital systems around the nation, helping more hospitals screen, diagnose and treat more at-risk patients.
Medical News: What problem are you trying to solve?
Brian Olivier, Founder
Gluconfidence
Diabetes is a challenging chronic disease, with many decisions that must be made each day regarding food, insulin and activity to manage blood glucose levels to near normal levels. Many people with Diabetes struggle with low blood glucose events and consume unhealthy food options without the confidence that their food choices will deliver a stable blood glucose response to normal levels. It’s a huge guessing game, that often results in large spikes in blood glucose levels, and then requires excessive insulin to correct. It’s like riding a blood glucose roller coaster that impacts quality of life in the short term, and health outcomes in the long term.
Gluconfidence provides a healthy, fast acting liquid glucose combined with real time blood glucose insights to provide more predictable blood glucose response to low blood sugar events. We leverage blood glucose data to personalize our liquid glucose delivery monthly and remove some of the “guessing” for insulin taking people with diabetes.
Natalie Davis, MD, Co-founder
PreventScripts
Primary Care providers have three core problems. First, primary care physicians lost an average of $64,000 per provider in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Second, primary care providers are increasingly held responsible for patient outcomes. Third, primary care providers have little training on behavior change methods.
So, we increase revenues by adding in a seamless Prevention Management service line to their clinics which runs in the background of their daily clinic work, with minimal impact on their workflow. One of our advisors mentioned pressure from her ACO leaders to “increase her prevention efforts” and she is so pressed for time with her patients already. The pressures are so great in Primary Care. There is no “extra time.” Enter Technology.
We solve this problem by automating validated survey collection, clinical decision support recommendations, and ship “kits” to patients’ homes to accelerate adherence to provider behavior change recommendations. We wrap this up with ongoing support for billing these CPT codes as well as deep training on implementing the shared decision-making approach in the clinic.
Jeff Timbrook, CEO
Thynk Health
We address the inefficiencies surrounding lung cancer screening, increase patient quality of care, and mitigate risks surrounding incidental findings.
Thynk Health has been partnering with many large national healthcare systems throughout the country to grow and improve cancer screening and nodule tracking programs since 2015 and has expanded its advanced artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to a broad range of modalities. Now healthcare systems can apply the same automated tracking and management of incidental findings to:
- Lung
- Breast
- Prostate
- Pancreas
- Renal
- Adrenal
- Spleen
- Thoracic Aneurysms
- Abdominal Aneurysms
- Ovary
- Liver
- BI-RADS (Breast)
- PI-RADS (Prostate)
- TI-RADS (Thyroid)
- LI-RADS (Liver)
Utilizing state-of-the-art AI and deep learning algorithms, Thynk Health extracts data from imaging reports and automatically tracks size, location, characteristics, changes and other critical data. This actionable data is presented to caregivers with interactive, efficient dashboards. The Thynk Insights analytics platform brings this data to life with customized reporting helping improve quality, efficiency, and outcomes in all areas of cancer care.
The newly released, Enterprise Incidental Findings Tracker empowers clinical teams to:
– Centralize the management of incidental imaging findings with smart dashboards.
– View patient timelines for easy surveillance of incidental findings.
– Track and manage CAC scores and classifications from radiology reports while receiving follow-up recommendations based on real- time results.
– Create management plans that automatically update findings status based on the report archive.
– Provide industry best-practice guidelines to drive management plans with facility-specific recommendations.
– Flag changes for follow-up and provides next steps to clinical teams.
We help save more patient lives, reduce the time and cost of doing so through automation, and help healthcare organizations generate revenue.
Medical News: What are a few challenges that innovative companies such as yours face?
Brian Olivier, Founder
Gluconfidence
The challenges in the very early stages can be difficult. Many times, you feel alone with your idea and not clear on what the next step should be. You are also strapped for resources. Finding people who have had success in the space you are focused on and talking with these founders is super helpful. Also having a close group of mentors who can talk you through some of those moments of self-doubt can be the difference between moving forward or not. There will always be resource constraints, but with tools like Fiverr and Upwork, a startup can find inexpensive options that help prove out their concept in the very early days.
Natalie Davis, MD, Co-founder
PreventScripts
Our specific challenge being in a rural area and geographically removed from the “coastal capital,” we find it more difficult to raise capital. Additionally, while we see being a female founded business as an advantage, it can also be more difficult to raise capital.
Studies by First Round found that companies with female founders perform 63 percent better than those of their male peers. And yet, only 2.7 percent of venture capital dollars went towards female-founded companies in 2019.
Though we have our challenges, we have found some unique advantages as well. First, we live in the geographic epicenter of the Robert Wood Johnson obesity map and therefore have a deep understanding of these families and their challenges to overcome health risk.
Jeff Timbrook, CEO
Thynk Health
Healthcare is a status quo industry and most organizations do not like change even though we do not require a change in workflows. Also, lung cancer screening and Incidental Findings are a relatively new market where programs are just getting started. Finally, healthcare budgets are tight especially with the ongoing pandemic.
Medical News: What can the healthcare community do to better support companies such as yours?
Brian Olivier, Founder
Gluconfidence
The healthcare community in Louisville can continue to support startups through the local accelerator eco-system and continue to strengthen the community connection between successful entrepreneurs and local startup founders. I also believe there is an increased opportunity to connect local university students who have tech, business or marketing focused skills, with local startups as this can be a great experience for the students, and a strong resource for the startups that can lead to future hires. The more that the ecosystem is aware of these resources, the more they can be used. I have personally benefited from working with local universities, and it’s been an awesome experience.
Natalie Davis, MD, Co-founder
PreventScripts
Consider a partnership with an innovative digital health company like PreventScripts. We partner with industry leading health organizations who are enthusiastically transitioning to value-based care. We partner with organizations who place tremendous value and respect with their primary care workforce. We like to work with organizations who are “batteries included” and have the same transformational mindset as we do. We like to work with organizations who are curious. We like to work with ACO’s who have funded technology and population health budgets earmarked from their previous year’s shared savings bonus. Our product is aligned with organizations who are ready to move beyond quality objectives like medicine adherence and readmission reduction. We like organizations who are ready for true transformation.
Jeff Timbrook, CEO
Thynk Health
The healthcare community is open-minded about how this software can improve the quality of life of those at risk for cancer and those diagnosed with cancer, also, saving more lives. The community needs to recognize that the software will save time, costs, and burnout of employees coordinating their early detection programs. Not only will this help with risk reduction and mitigation but also generate revenue through the power of new software.
A closer look at the roundtable companies
Gluconfidence
Founder & CEO: Brian Olivier
Headquarters: Prospect, Kentucky
Year founded: 2020
Website: www.gluconfidence.com
Gluconfidence was founded in 2020 with a mission is to reduce the daily burden for insulin taking people with diabetes and improve blood glucose control through data driven glucose delivery.
Founder Brian Olivier is a medical device executive with 18 years’ experience in operations, marketing and diabetes medical technology. A pivotal moment is his life was attaining his goal of becoming a military pilot and then being forced to leave the military due to health issues (Type 1 diabetes). He has been living with diabetes for 16 years.
When people have a low blood glucose event, they don’t know exactly how much glucose to ingest, and lack convenient, precise, healthy sources of glucose. If they over-treat a low event, they must take excessive insulin to correct the hyperglycemia that results. It’s exhausting and expensive. Gluconfidence offers the first diabetes technology that also incorporates a consumer product into a single, data-driven service.
PreventScripts
Co-founders: Natalie Davis, MD (Chief Medical Officer), Brandi Harless (CEO) and Jay Campbell (Chief Technology Officer)
Number of employees: Currently has 2 employees and 8 expert advisors that support the company ongoing.
Headquarters: Paducah, Kentucky
Year founded: 2014
Website: www.preventscripts.com
PreventScripts supports primary care providers with revenue-generating, digital prevention service line which assesses and identifies patients who are at-risk for chronic illness like diabetes and hypertension, determines the best patient-specific care plan and provides digital interventions including remote patient monitoring, preventive counseling and tobacco cessation education.
Thynk Health
CEO: Jeff Timbrook
Number of employees: 16
Headquarters: Lexington, Kentucky
Year Founded: 2015
Website: www.thynkhealth.com
Thynk Health is fighting lung cancer by working with healthcare organizations and communities to disrupt outdated, burdensome lung cancer screening processes and remove barriers standing between patients and treatment. Thynk Health’s sophisticated software solution transforms healthcare data systems to identify at-risk populations for screening, enabling early detection and treatment to save lives. Automated data entry and ACR submission, Nodule Tracking, and a host of advanced features deliver a complete lung cancer screening solution that enables lung cancer screening program growth while improving patient outcomes. Incidental Findings are discovered in approximately 31 percent of radiology reports, yet proper communication and follow-up occur only one out of every three times.
