Podcast with Dhruv Vasishtha (WG ’18) | PatientPing

The hot take: PatientPing has raised over $40M from investors like First Round Capital, GV, LTP and Andreessen Horowitz. Dhruv is a Senior Product Manager who has worked for PatientPing since graduating from Wharton. In this episode, you’ll hear more about the inner workings of the company, from the nitty gritty technical platform to the day-to-day culture of the team.

Get to know Dhruv (1:00–4:49):

• Began his career in consulting. Worked in Product at high growth healthcare technology companies before coming to Wharton (WG ‘18).
• Met Jay Desai, CEO of PatientPing (and Wharton alum) during his Wharton orientation.
• Reconnected with Jay & the team after moving to Boston and the rest is history.
• Has spent the past year working as a Senior Product Manager.

Closer look into PatientPing and the issues the company addresses (5:01–8:14):

• Healthcare payments have continued shifting from fee-for-service to pay-for-value.
• As this shift occurs, the relationship between providers and patients is evolving, too. The relationship between the two is becoming more longitudinal.
• PatientPing helps all types of provider entities understand where patients are, what’s happening to them outside of their own four walls.
• Healthcare costs are disproportionately driven by the sickest, highest need patients, who receive care from several providers at several locations. Transitions are hard to capture.
• PatientPing allows stakeholders to support their sickest patients by connecting information so that providers can better identify where their patients are and what’s happening to them at other sites. This drives higher quality care.

The nitty gritty: how PatientPing works (12:09–15:59)

• PatientPing receives data from facilities, nationally, via Admission, Discharge, Transfer (“ADT”) feeds and other data sources.
• Can see things like: Who has shown up at a facility? Has the patient been admitted? Have they been discharged? What brought them there? Who is treating the patient?
• Through intelligent algorithms, PatientPing can match the people provided by a patient roster to the people that show up in the data sent by facilities, as well as who these facilities are treating and why.
• Core to the innovation is the ability to reliability let a provider know where their patient is when he or she shows up for an emergency elsewhere. The technology can recommend the provider reach out to the facility and follow up with the patient to coordinate subsequent care. This helps avoid a scenario in which a patient may slip through the cracks.
• PatientPing is providing insights on millions of patients.

Editor’s note: Having worked at network-driven companies prior to business school, I want to note that the transaction volume PatientPing has managed to achieve here is no easy feat. It requires a ton of thoughtful coordination to reach this kind of scale. Kudos to the team.

Why might investors want to double down on PatientPing? (16:03–17:38)

• Investors include GV, Andressen, First Round, LTP. All of these investors make big bets in network businesses.
• PatientPing is a network business. As its network grows, the value of its data increases.
• PatientPing can unlock when a patient sees a provider outside of their network makes investors, customers and other stakeholders excited.

What is Dhruv working on? (17:45–19:12)

• Core product is “Pings”, which provide intelligent notifications to people managing patients longitudinally.
• PatientPing has another product called “Stories”, which provides relevant context to case managers, providers, nurses and social workers at the point of care.
• Stories supplements Pings by delivering intelligent information to people who have a patient sitting in front of them and need to make a point of care decision.
• As theProduct Manager for Stories, Dhruv works with Sales, Marketing, Engineering, Customers, End Users and the PatientPing management team to deliver product vision and tactical execution that impacts patient transitions at the point of care.

What makes PatientPing a unique place to work? (19:20–21:03):

• Everyone has amazing blend of having worked in health tech or having worked at a customer. Most people relate to customers because they’ve actually been in their shoes.
• A lot of people at PatientPing are building the products they wish they had in previous jobs or wish they had when they were patients or caregivers.
• This focus enables the team to build innovative products that are impactful. PatientPing also has an amazingly collaborative relationship with customers, which provides a fast feedback cycle that enables innovation.

What is working at PatientPing actually like? (25:51–31:06):

• Dhruv works with a variety of teams on a daily basis, from customers to clinical team members to designers. He walks us through a typical day, where he meets with everyone from designers to the medical leads of the company.
• PatientPing has a culture of staying close to the customer and understanding their pain points to drive improvements in technology
• The company has an abundance of opportunity for what they could do with technology. Have to be thoughtful about decisions and how to prioritize for highest impact.

Let’s talk about hiring. What are the roles PatientPing is hiring MBAs for? What skill sets are most relevant? (31:29–36:06)

• PatientPing is scaling quickly! MBAs are great fits for roles in Partnerships, Strategic Business Development, Growth, Strategic Marketing & Product Marketing
• On the transition to Product Management for MBAs: best way to become a Product Manager is to start by creating something (Dhruv got his start by building a rap satire site called “The Rap Insider”).
• Be ready to build something that will last. Turn an idea into reality and sustain it, whether it’s a blog, newsletter, side project. Hiring managers are looking for builders in their new Product Managers.

Parting notes for MBAs and anyone looking for roles? (36:13-end)

• Reach out to Dhruv! He’s happy to help anyone interested in understanding their fit for the company. You can send him a note on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dhruvvasishtha.
• If you’re trying to break into digital health, get as close to the complexity as you can. Healthcare is many industries rolled into one. Lots of things aren’t well understood.
• MBA’s are well-positioned if you can get close to the problems and experiences, especially understanding how regulation impacts things at the ground level. That’s the basis for how PatientPing was formed!