The Missing Piece for Integrated Care
A few years ago, I was heads-down building my previous startup during Y Combinator’s 3-month accelerator program. I had just weeks to go before Demo Day to present to a room full of 300 investors and wanted to put every waking hour into my company. Despite that, a medical condition had other plans for me. I had to spend hours away week after week stuck in laboratory waiting rooms, only to spend 30 seconds with a phlebotomist, and thought there had to be a better way.
Later, as a new generation of patient-centric telehealth companies emerged, I noticed there were significant limitations — they could only treat simple conditions which did not require lab tests. It suddenly became clear— what if there was a way for telehealth to pair with remote in-person care and treat more complex conditions right from patient’s homes?
To validate this, I started meeting founders of large telehealth companies. I quickly discovered their inability to get lab tests was the biggest blocker to expanding their services since 70% of all medical decisions depend on labs.
It was clear we needed to start with lab tests first and any future services could be layered on top of the infrastructure that would be required. I found the top phlebotomy expert in the country, Dennis Ernst, and started Getlabs.
My promise to Dennis was simple: the phlebotomy side of Getlabs would run independently from the business and he would lead our independent quality council. We even created a company-wide “grandmother test” — with every business decision, would we stand by it if the patient was our grandmother?
To ensure we delivered consistent and predictable quality, we built our own technology platform ensuring our processes were on rails. And then we hired the best phlebotomists we could find and trained them to our own standards to ensure consistency and accuracy.
Today, we are excited to announce Getlabs’ technology platform is ready and we are now live and serving patients in our first three markets: Phoenix, Philadelphia, and Dallas. We have also received $3 million in funding from PivotNorth Capital, Tusk Venture Partners, Rosecliff Ventures, and Liquid 2 Ventures. Most exciting of all — our first patient in Philadelphia was my own grandmother and we officially passed our “grandmother test.”
Looking to the future, lab tests are only the beginning for us. As the pandemic has fueled rapid and lasting adoption of telehealth, we are seeing the perfect storm to transform healthcare for the better. What if we could extend not only the capabilities of telehealth companies to see patients remotely, but also traditional healthcare companies?
Whether healthcare companies are brick and mortar or digital-only, we are creating the infrastructure to bring them to you— starting with laboratories. We can’t wait to show you what we have planned.
To learn more about Getlabs, please visit getlabs.com
