Navigating Disruption: Week 0
A Live Documentary of a Disruptor’s Disruption
We are “disruptors.” We are a healthcare technology start-up focused on eliminating waste in the healthcare system by disrupting traditional operating practices. But now COVID-19 has disrupted the disruptor. Throughout the pandemic, we will document the thoughts we have, the plans we make, the risks we take, and the choices we face. Here is our story, one week at a time.
Week 0 — Flying High and Gaining Altitude
We are Edgility Cognitive Healthcare, a technology start-up that develops Systems Operations Centers to handle the operational flow of hospitals and health systems. Our role, intentional or not, is to disrupt. Disrupting is what start-ups do. It’s our life-blood.
We launched in 2016 with a novel and eagerly anticipated idea. Today Edgility is inking contracts with major health systems from New York to Los Angeles and energetically working the phones to recruit talent. Yes, I am a disruptor.
Our team is family. My wife, Heather Holland and I are co-founders. For over twelve years I have known Christopher “Chris” Wenders, Edgility’s Head of Operations. Lisa Meyer and I have known each other for over 5 years and has recently become Edgility’s Chief Outcomes Officer. We have a great extended team with a lot of history.
In the final of February 2020, I sat with my colleague in the Los Angeles airport on our way back to our offices in Tampa. We had signed a new client, expanded a project in the Midwest, and secured a top-notch resource, as a contractor, to carry the load as we ramped up. Arriving back home to the office, we put the finishing touches on materials for the annual Health Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Conference held the following week in Orlando, our backyard. For a Healthcare Technology start-up, HIMSS is the venue for our clients and investors. We “hacked” the trade show by building our 100-inch command center screen and display system, that is easily transportable and avoids expensive rental.
Finally, after years of organizing the company, endless hours of product development, and countless iterations of PowerPoint “decks”, our efforts were bearing fruit. We are ready!
Back in the LA airport chatter about the novel Coronavirus filled the news channels. I couldn’t help thinking the density of China’s population-centers dwarfed those of the U.S.; contagion under such circumstances seemed inevitable. Here in the States? Not so much. Business-wise, did it matter? At this point, the impact of the outbreak to us, is unclear (but unsettling).
