More Physician (and Patient) Entrepreneurs Are Needed In Digital Health — Here’s Why

You’ve probably heard the common argument that some problems take an outsider to solve. The people working in an industry that’s experiencing a problem are too close to the issues to fix them, too involved in the work to step outside their bubble and see the solutions. It can be a persuasive argument in many cases.

I’ve heard this line of reasoning used for the healthcare industry plenty of times, but I have to say, I don’t think it fits in this case. Healthcare is complex — incredibly so. From the outside, it’s hard to understand the intricacies of the system, and the way they affect patients, providers, and everyone in between.

Physicians are better equipped to innovate in healthcare because they’re so close to the problems, not in spite of that.

What we really need are more physician entrepreneurs. Physicians are better equipped to innovate in healthcare because they’re so close to the problems, not in spite of that. They live it. They feel it. They feel that frustration. But one could argue (effectively) that everyone could be a patient at any given time, and may experience frustration and pain on the other end of the care delivery. So I guess I could modify my statement: We need physicians and patients to revolutionize healthcare, together!

I saw a problem, a gap that wasn’t being filled, and it frustrated me. I kept seeing things happening with my patients that I didn’t like, that I wanted to change, that I wanted to improve.

Let’s rewind for a minute.

An 18-year-old decides that he wants to pursue a career in medicine. Four or so years of college go by, then it’s off to medical school. He graduates from medical school, except he isn’t quite a kid anymore. And now he’s starting his residency. A few more years go by. Oh, and then he follows that up with a fellowship. If he’s like most, he’ll finish all of that around 32. That’s fourteen years of schooling and training.

And what is that young doctor being trained to do? Care for people. That’s the core of it. Everything revolves around caring for patients, helping people, helping them get better. You’re constantly taught how to take care of people not only physically, but emotionally. How do you diagnose the disease? How do you take care of it? How are you empathetic? How do you guide a patient emotionally and physically through a problem?

So when I, or any other physician, see patients who are suffering because of a gap in the system, we feel that on a deep level. We’re on such a one-track mind of taking care of people that the frustration affects us to our core.

Physicians are in an ideal position to innovate in digital health because we’re the ones that are often most emotionally and repeatedly affected by the problems that exist. I decided to step out of the box and innovate because it hurt me that I couldn’t care for my patients the way that I believed they needed to be taken care of. I wanted to fix that — not just for myself, but for physicians everywhere.

I created Pulse, a joint replacement recovery platform, because I was tired of sending patients home after surgery with nothing more than a sheet of paper with simple care instructions.

There are problems that exist within the system. For me, I felt the limitations that came with not being able to interact with my patients due to the sheer numbers involved. If my patients come for surgery from two or three hours away, I can’t go visit them afterwards. I can’t even efficiently call all of my patients daily because of sheer numbers and a lack of time. I operate on 500-plus patients a year. It’s just not feasible to call each of them individually to follow up on a daily basis. But like I said, that inability to help is what causes emotional dissatisfaction for physicians. It’s what frustrates us on a personal level.

Physician entrepreneurs and patients have an opportunity to take that dissatisfaction, that frustration, and find a solution for it.

We know where the gaps are because we feel them acutely every time we’re unable to care for a patient the way we want to, or when we go through a care experience that doesn’t live up to expectations. We know what we would like to be able to do, and we have an opportunity to pursue that solution.

Of course, the problem for many physicians is that we’re not really trained on the business side of things. We’ve already spent over a decade making sure that we can care for our patients — that’s our overwhelming priority, and it doesn’t leave much time to business classes.

But I still believe that it’s necessary for more physicians to take that leap into digital health. Balancing time is tough, believe me. But if you can solve the problem that’s been bothering you for years — the gap that you know needs to be filled — then it will be just as worthwhile as the time you put in to become a physician in the first place.