Ep. 11: Shelli Pavone, CEO and Co-founder, Inlightened. Topic: Healthcare Innovation
Kathy: Hi everyone, and welcome to Episode 11 of the Smarter Healthcare Podcast. Our guest today is Shelli Pavone, CEO and co-founder of a new startup called Inlightened. Inlightened is a web-based network platform that enables healthcare companies to connect with clinical experts to improve their product development. Shelli and I discussed healthcare innovation and the need for diversity in the development process. Here’s our chat.
Kathy: Hi Shelli. Thanks for joining me on the podcast today.
Shelli: Hi, thank you. Happy to be here.
Kathy: Could you start off by talking a little bit about your background and then tell us a about Inlightened? So, why did you build the company, what problem in healthcare are you addressing?
Shelli: Absolutely. So my background is in healthcare, I’ve been in the healthcare field for my entire career, going on 18 years now. I’ve always focused on the commercial side of healthcare. So, right out of college I started working for large pharmaceutical and device companies, and really the last 7 years of my career I transitioned to focus more on the healthcare tech space, specifically working for healthcare tech startups. And the idea for Inlightened was really filled out of my experience, working with those healthcare start-ups specifically. Going into the start-up world is certainly an interesting venture, especially within healthcare. Healthcare is so variable and complex and there are a lot of people that are focused on innovating and disrupting in healthcare right now, which is great. It’s really important that we do innovate in healthcare, it’s a huge topic lately and we need those people who are willing to take risks and think outside of the box in something like healthcare. But what I noticed oftentimes in working for these companies and working for innovators is that they’re coming from either business school or sometimes from a more tech-focused background, and trying to disrupt in the incredibly complex field of healthcare without all of the knowledge that they need. And that’s not a knock against anybody trying to innovate in healthcare, it’s impossible for anyone to have all of the knowledge that you need in the healthcare space. Even those that have dedicated their careers and their lives to healthcare can’t possibly know about every single aspect. And I saw the companies that I worked for struggle in certain areas to access true expertise in healthcare. And at times what they needed from a healthcare expert was different than what they would need down the road. For instance, when you’re beginning a healthcare tech company maybe you’re working in a specific clinical area, like cardiology, and you want to clinically validate the idea that you have, and so you’re going to tap a cardiologist or maybe you need a cardiothoracic surgeon, but down the road when you’re looking to market this idea or sell it to hospitals you need somebody who has a more in-depth understanding of the hospital adoption curve or what go to market looks like. And so I started Inlightened as a way to provide vetted expertise in the healthcare field to these people that are innovating within healthcare. 96% of healthcare innovations fail, which is a really high rate, and we started Inlightened because we wanted to give these companies that were taking risks and trying to think outside the box in healthcare a better shot at survival. And so what we do with Inlightened is we have a curated vetted network of clinicians, and we have since expanded to those that work in regulatory in healthcare, and the commercial side of healthcare as well, and we really help companies find the right expertise for every stage that they are in as a company. So all of the stages of the innovation life cycle, whether it’s just simply idea-vetting, clinical idea-vetting, navigating the FDA approval process, the regulatory side of healthcare, go to market, understanding the market, strategic advisory, writing, thought leadership, all of that. We have experts that are a part of our network, it’s invitation-only, we vet every one of the experts on our network, and then we really just connect them for consulting opportunities to companies that are doing innovative things within healthcare.
Kathy: Great. And what are your clients looking to accomplish with the access to these external experts? Are they short-term projects? Long-term projects? Somewhere in between?
Shelli: You know, it’s variable. Certainly all of our clients are quite different. We have clients that range from idea stage tech start-ups that are still in what we consider to be stealth mode, to larger healthcare companies that have already raised multiple rounds of funding and they’re dealing in the pharmaceutical and medical device space. So in turn, what they’re looking to accomplish is different as well. We focus more on long-term projects and when I say long-term I just mean not somebody that’s looking to speak to somebody for an hour and be done with it, right? We want people that are –have a specific need, but certainly we do have clients that are interested in the one-off, one hour conversation as well. They’re looking to accomplish, a lot of times they’re looking to accomplish, I would say, to gain expertise in an area where the founders of the company just aren’t proficient. Accessing medical expertise is costly and extremely time-consuming, and so getting access to these people that we’ve already vetted through Inlightened is very valuable for these healthcare companies at all stages. Just a couple of examples of how our clients have worked with us: we have one client that uses our experts on an on-going basis for thought leadership and medical article writing, so the clinicians get to write articles for them that patients can view, layperson audience, and get a better understanding of where they could seek care, and really understand their symptoms a little bit better. We have another client that has engaged clinicians to advise them on strategic decisions, and they’re also doing some consulting on the user experience, for their tech platform. So having clinicians walk through the platform and really give them feedback about the usability of the tool, and whether or not that’s something that they would recommend to their patients. And then of course we have clients that are engaging clinicians to help them really clinically validate an idea, or to better understand a specific market. Why would they use one product over another? Is this a crowded market? Is this an area that’s ripe for disruption? And really for us it’s about helping each client through the different stages of the innovation life cycle, and they engage with a varied group of diverse experts through Inlightened, and our goal would be to get them the right expertise for every stage, and to understand that even though there are some longer-term projects, sometimes the expert that you engaged with in the very beginning days of your journey is going to be very different from the person that you need in a different stage as well.
Kathy: Can you talk a little bit more about the experts who are part of your network? You said before that they’re all vetted. How do you really make sure that they have the expertise that your clients require?
Shelli: Yeah, so we have a pretty extensive process when we’re bringing experts onto our platform. So, initially, we focused on clinicians and physicians, specifically. And every one of the physicians is invited by another physician. We started out with a group of physicians and when we onboard each one of them we ask them for those clinicians that they work alongside of that they respect, that they think would contribute positively to the Inlightened network. Once we have a clinician, we have them submit all of their materials, their CV, their resume, their background, we do background checks on their license number as well, and then with every single clinician we do a 30-minute minimum onboarding call, where we really get to know them and dig a little bit deeper to understand their specific areas of expertise. So from some perspective, they’re already recommended by one of their peers, so that’s really our first level of vetting, and then the second level is really digging in to understand their areas of expertise, but also just a little bit more about them as a person and as a physician. We focus on clinicians that are specifically interested in healthcare innovation. We want clinicians to join the network that are really passionate about helping these companies be successful. We don’t want clinicians that are just focused on additional revenue for themselves. We want those that are ready to roll up their sleeves and engage with the companies that we work with. So during that 30-minute time period we really get to understand the areas of expertise that they’re interested in, where they’ve been successful in their careers, how they treat patients, their general treatment philosophy, et cetera, and then we really try to take all of the information that we’ve gained from them through their documents, and in that phone call, and we write them a really nice bio for our platform so that companies that are interested in working with them really get a great look into their background and their focus and their areas of interest.
Kathy: Is there anything in particular that you do to ensure diversity among your experts?
Shelli: Absolutely. Diversity is huge for us. That is one of the areas in healthcare that we see an issue with very often. I hear stories every day about how specific innovations are not serving all patients, specifically a diverse set of patients. And I truly believe that in order to be able to provide innovations that serve all patients you have to have - you have to start with a diverse set of clinicians. Diverse clinicians treat diverse patient populations. So that is a huge focus for us. When we started out, obviously having it be invitation-only through physicians provided us an initial group that was somewhat homogeneous. Because you’re just getting one clinician, you have their peer that they think is great and they’re recommending them, but very quickly we decided to really zero in on diversity and make sure that our population of clinicians is really reflective of the type of patients that we want to be able to serve through the innovations that come to our tool. So we look out for specific groups of clinicians that have a focus on diversity, there’s the Association of Black Cardiologists that we’ve reached out to to partner with, there are other groups that we look to to help us provide a diverse set of clinicians within our tool. We’ve worked with Doctor Kameron Matthews and Alden Landry who have an organization that is called Tour for Diversity in Medicine. They focus very much on taking a diverse set of clinicians to different colleges to incentivize those from different races to become physicians. So for us, diversity is a focus for us building our network every day and certainly we keep tabs on the diversity of our network. Every clinician that joins is given a survey and they’re asked to identify that information as well.
Kathy: What areas do you think are most ripe for innovation in healthcare?
Shelli: So I think that in healthcare, almost every aspect can benefit from innovation or at least modernization, if you will. However, when we do onboard an engaged clinician for our platform we do ask them that exact question. Clinicians have, I think, the best understanding of really what areas are ripe for disruption or innovation. And some of the most common answers that we get are certainly access to care, that’s huge, making sure that all populations have access to care, how can we get better access to care? Physician burnout is another big one. I think since the integration of EMRs unfortunately physicians have suffered from burnout, and that’s definitely an area where we need to see some innovation, and then also quality data and informatics and population health as well. I think as well one of the biggest drivers of disruption and innovation in healthcare, however, is the patient. The patients really are the ones that tell us areas that are ripe for innovation. Because we start to see patients demanding the same level of innovation and service and quality from their health service providers that they see in other services. In sectors like online shopping, travel, media – so patients and the broader community are increasingly demanding better service and better care, and they need to be able to trust that innovation and healthcare is executed responsibly. And responsible disruption is something that’s a big focus as well.
Kathy: How has COVID-19 impacted how we need to think about and execute innovation?
Shelli: I think COVID-19 has really impacted healthcare innovation very drastically. We’ve seen there is a large impact on healthcare innovation from COVID already. If I look at a specific example it’s really changed the way that we deliver care. We see a dramatic spike in the number of people who receive care virtually. One recent survey found an increase from 17% in 2019 to 70% in 2020. That shift is one of the many reasons that we need to change the way we think about and execute innovation. And what I mean by that is that in a way that shift in telehealth, something that has been around for a very long time but has suffered from low adoption until now, really shifts the boundaries of what we can expect from innovation. Previous to COVID I think there was the thought that innovation in healthcare can’t be adopted rapidly. There’s always that thought that healthcare is so slow-moving and if we’re going to bring about innovation in healthcare we have to be in it for the long haul. It’s going to take ten-plus years to be adopted. But I think the example of the rapid adoption of telehealth through COVID-19 proves that we can actually see rapid adoption of innovation in healthcare. And to me that has given us the license to really think bigger. Let’s not accept the old rule that healthcare is slow to adopt innovation and we can’t accept any longer that that’s just the way it is because we’ve seen it happen. In dire times, certainly, but we’ve seen it happen. So I think that we can start to think outside the box even more now, and when we get that pushback on rapid adoption of healthcare innovation, I think we have a really great example that it can be done, and this is a great thing to focus on moving forward.
Kathy: When it comes to innovation in healthcare, what do we need to do to better address inequalities and ensure better care for all patients?
Shelli: So as I mentioned before with diversity of clinicians, the first step in addressing inequality and inequity in healthcare is to engage a diverse set of clinicians and patients. We need to make sure that diversity underlies everything that we do in healthcare. It sounds simple, but I hear stories all the time of innovators engaging with a really homogenous group. Or again, just the clinicians in their network. Going back to a part of the reason why we started Inlightened is because what I saw innovators doing is finding one or two clinicians that they had already in their network and really using them as a sounding board for their idea vetting and understanding what they needed to create and bouncing ideas off a very small population of people. And I wanted to provide not only diversity of thought and opinion through the access through Inlightened, but really the diversity of the people that they’re speaking to. Diverse clinicians are treating a diverse set of patients, and if we are going outside of our bubble and outside of our close network and really talking to clinicians of not only different races but those that are in different geographies, those that are in different practice types, those that are serving different communities of patients, then that’s how we can find solutions that are providing better care for everyone. If we look at studies, they show that diversity unlocks innovation. It drives growth, it stimulates novel thinking, and it improves outcomes. So not only is the diversity through clinicians and patients going to provide better care to patients, but it’s going to actually assist innovators in being more successful as well. The innovators who don’t source diverse expert and patient perspectives risk building a lot of bias into their solutions, and I think in order to innovate solutions that serve diverse patient populations, those patients need to be included in the conversation and certainly clinical trials, et cetera, from the very beginning.
Kathy: What do you think the ideal state of healthcare innovation looks like?
Shelli: Ideal innovations in healthcare, of course, would lower costs and improve outcomes. That’s kind of the idealistic view within healthcare. But that being said I don’t know that there is an ideal state for healthcare innovation. Or maybe there is, but I think focusing on ideal is difficult in healthcare, because if we focus on ideal I think sometimes that takes our focus away from what’s most important, which I think is progress. What does progress look like in healthcare innovation? I think that COVID-19 has shed some light on what progress looks like, I think it’s shown that those who think it’s impossible to deliver telehealth, again, to the masses that it’s not really as difficult as we thought. We’ve seen so many companies in light of COVID-19 spin off innovative solutions. They’ve pivoted to provide solutions virtually or pivoted their products completely to be able to provide something new to service patients in light of COVID-19. So to me the ideal state in healthcare innovation is that consistent progress and the willingness to forge ahead with solutions that people think are impossible and again all within that scope of responsible disruption, of course. But I think that we have to focus on progress which is the ideal in healthcare.
Kathy: So let’s look ahead five years. What progress do you think we will have made in healthcare innovation?
Shelli: You know in five years I hope that we don’t lose the lessons that we’ve learned during this time, from COVID-19. I hope that we don’t allow ourselves to shift back into that bubble of thinking that it’s difficult to innovate in healthcare, that it can’t be done, that it’s going to take ten years. I hope that we also really focus on how diversity provides us the best possible opportunity for success with healthcare innovation. I think that the world is learning lessons about diversity right now as well, and again, I think it’s paramount that we keep this in mind. I am hoping that we can get a vaccine for COVID-19 just like everyone else, I hope that we can all move ahead, I hope that some things can turn back to normal, but I hope that we never return back to the normal of not taking into consideration diversity within healthcare, and how important it is to innovate for everyone, and I hope that we can also keep in mind that it can be done. If we all put our minds together it can be done. We don’t have to wait for a global emergency to forge ahead with healthcare innovation. And I hope in five years we have kept an eye on the lessons that we’ve learned from this time period and that we’re continuing to be aggressive in healthcare innovation while again always keeping that scope of responsible disruption in mind.
Kathy: Well, Shelli, thank you so much. This was a great conversation.
Shelli: Great, thank you so much.
Kathy: Thank you for joining me for this episode of the Smarter Healthcare Podcast.
To learn more about Shelli’s work at Inlightened, visit the company on Twitter @getinlightened – that’s inlightened with an “I”.
You can also follow me on Twitter @ksucich or @smarthcpodcast. Feel free to get in touch with comments or guest suggestions.
To listen to more episodes, visit our website at www.smarthcpodcast.com or find us on your favorite podcast app. I’d appreciate if you would subscribe, rate, and review.
Thanks for listening!
