Identifying Valuable Partners to Help Grow Health Systems

“For us, a key to success is, again, not just look for money, but look for smart money,” says Jeff Fallon, CEO, eVideon. “Look for money that is very invested in the success of the company, not just the success of the money that they put into the company.”

Podcast Transcript: 

Welcome back to "PopHealth Perspectives," a podcast hosted by the Population Health Learning Network, where we combine expert commentary and exclusive insight into key issues in population health management and more.

Today, we're joined by Jeff Fallon, CEO of eVideon.

My name is Jeff Fallon. I'm the Chief Executive Officer for eVideon, a digital health company up in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I've been in the business of health care for, golly, 33 years now, largely leading commercial efforts in medical devices and pharmaceuticals and capital equipment, the like, and most of that time with Johnson & Johnson.

I've been in this digital health space for the last 10 years, where I've been really honored to lead a couple of very creative companies that are trying to make a difference in the mission to engage patients in their own care, and make a difference in outcomes and efficiency of the clinical team, and lower the cost of care overall too.

eVideon, as I said, is a company based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The heritage of the company really is technology experts. They were systems integrators starting in the school business, where they were creating technology solutions for educational institutions, particularly around the school systems in Michigan.

When a new hospital was being built up in Grand Rapids, the folks building that hospital got wind of the technology expertise of the folks at eVideon and asked them if they could undertake a project with this beautiful, new hospital being constructed.

So, eVideon took a look and said, "Yes!" That was quite some time ago. Along the way, they found themselves growing a business in health care that eventually far exceeded the value of the business and the promise, as well, in health care, of the school business. Back in October 2019, we sold off the school subsidiary and are solely focused on the health care space now.

We enjoy a list of clients across the United States, with large health systems as well as small hospitals, including the Veterans Administration health system and the Department of Defense's health system, which is a very important mission for our company and our country, of course.

We're now purely a software company that works with hospitals to deliver a solution at the bedside, for the inpatient beds, to use technology connected to the information systems that the hospital has, primarily the electronic medical record, to push very specific information in video format to the patient that's in the bed. So, they're essentially watching short videos about the medical condition, or the procedures, or the diagnosis, or the medications they've been given -- whatever has them in the bed in the first place.

We're using short snippets of video that have been personalized for that particular patient to improve their understanding of the condition or the procedures, and reduce the likelihood they're going to be coming back for complications.

Along the way, we're putting things in front of them on these smart devices, whether it's a tablet at the bedside or a smart TV on the wall, that improve the experiences. As Americans, we expect technology to provide new information and entertainment options to us wherever we might happen to be, including in a hospital bed today.

Of course, we're doing things to distract and entertain the patient on those devices, through a TV experience like they would have at home, with a family channel guide, movies on demand, browsing the Internet, video games, things like that. While the patient's distracted and entertaining themselves, we're able to proactively, in an automated way -- again, driven by integration to the electronic medical record -- push these snippets of short video education to them, track completion and comprehension, and then document that to the electronic medical record as well.

That's a quick background on the company, and the core of the value proposition of what eVideon does.

I'm thrilled to talk to you about the funding from Spectrum Health Ventures. As mentioned, Grand Rapids, Michigan is our headquarters. You might notice that Spectrum Health is likewise a Michigan health system, and a pretty prominent one.

About three years ago, Spectrum Health set up their own venture capital group seeking to invest in ideas that could help the organization succeed under value-based care. Be a better performer as a hospital system, while also helping to bloom promising new technology in companies that they could help through their expertise and their funding.

Because Spectrum was a client for some time for eVideon, when they created this venture capital group, they took notes of this local company that was doing some pretty exciting work with their health system, and the conversation began pretty promptly about the opportunity to invest in eVideon and help to steer the company. The conversation really has been underway for some time, but primarily a lot more intensive over the last year.

We're excited to announce just recently that Spectrum Health Ventures has invested in the company. It's the first local investment that Spectrum Health Ventures has made. We're in their backyard. They're excited about that. They'd like to do more of that.

We're excited about having not just the money coming in from a VC, and frankly the VC appetite for investing in digital health solutions in 2019 far exceeded the already hot market in 2018 for VC investment. So, there was a great deal of interest in our space, in digital health specifically.

We were very excited about having investment from not just any VC, but actually a client who knew our technology and our people very well, and were excited about having a provider not just invested in the company, but also sitting on our board and helping us steer this company and make decisions that are closely aligned with the provider priorities.

Frankly, we feel like if we can make decisions as a company that closely align to meeting the needs and aspirations of a provider like Spectrum Health, we think that's a pretty good path to success.

We always want to be aligned to what the needs are and desires of providers are. So, we're thrilled to have them on our board. We're thrilled to have them investing in the company. Frankly, if I had to choose between the two which was more important, I'd say it's their strategic partnership in the company even more so than the money.

When you think about the major takeaways of the funding partnership between Spectrum Health Ventures and eVideon, to me, and for us as a company...I think I can share some Spectrum Health Ventures sentiments here.

As I said before, the appetite for venture capital investment in digital health technology over the last two years has been very, very strong. Of course, the current pandemic has been a curveball to everything. I can't speak to what's happening in the last few weeks. I trust it's had some kind of an impact on that.

Before the pandemic, of course, it was a very hot market. I imagine that once the pandemic passes, and we're all healthy, I would think that the urgency for continued investment in digital health solutions, particularly those that enable virtual interactions such as eVideon's platform, will return to that very hot interest, and even exceed that.

The key highlights or takeaways of it for us are, there's plenty of money available for VC investment. We felt like it was most important for us to have investments...Not just money, but partnership with somebody who brought strategic insights and networking to our company, to help us steer the company and make decisions, get it to closely align with the priorities and needs and aspirations of health systems that are really investing to succeed under value-based care that's coming at an increasing rate in the United States today.

I'd say look for partners that share your vision, and look for partners that you could see yourself working closely with. Again, we were not looking for somebody to write us a check and walk away and check in with us once a quarter. We were looking for somebody who was investing for the long-term, and the promise of this technology to make a difference for the provider organization, and somebody who would also roll up their sleeves, get on the board, and help us make decisions and steer the business.

I guess I'd call it smart money is what we were looking for. I'm excited to say they're certainly very smart money over at Spectrum Health Ventures.

If you're thinking about it from the health system perspective, our hypothesis is that this investment in eVideon by a Spectrum Health should give confidence to health systems. When they look at their options, if we contract with companies that can do what we do at the bedside and beyond, across the hospital campus, we think it should inspire confidence in us as a company, as a competitor, for that partnership with them. Then we've got a partner on board who's helping us make those kinds of decisions from a provider perspective.

I would say if you're looking at the investment potential from a health system VC perspective, know that that's going to be a goal of...Hopefully that's a goal of the company that they're investing in. It's not just the money, but a partner in helping to lead the company through what's ahead, because there's white water right now that everybody's navigating in health care.

We're doing our best to help our clients and our partners navigate success through this very difficult period. We're certain that it's going to get very hot again once this pandemic has subsided. Our hunch is that more health system VCs who are looking for those kinds of partners, that want that kind of relationship with their VC, would want to embrace that kind of a model as well.

Hopefully that helps.

That's a very good question, in tips that we might have for companies that are seeking VC funding. I would say don't just look for money. Don't look for just a check, unless you really think you have it all figured out. In this environment, I think that curves come on a daily basis in the roads we navigate to success.

For us, a key to success is, again, not just look for money, but look for smart money. Look for money that is very invested in the success of the company, not just the success of the money that they put into the company. I'm not saying that the money isn't important. Of course it's vital. We wouldn't do it otherwise. But that kind of partner is critical for a company at our stage of growth, and for what's ahead and what's possible for us as well.

Don't be dazzled so much by the money. The money is absolutely critically important. But as important, at least for us, was the partnership from a strategic investor who would roll up their sleeves and help us make great decisions that help our customers succeed in the value-based care. We think that's the right model for success. As long as we're helping our customers be successful, and that's our highest priority, we'll be quite successful as a company if we're thoughtful about the way we run the business.

I think I'd like to add a little bit more about what we're doing at eVideon in terms of this Smart Room concept. The history of this space, of engaging patients at the bedside with smart devices that are connected to the electronic medical record, to cause this kind of activation of that patient, or engagement and education of that patient, while they're entertaining themselves.

The history of that value proposition has been very bed-centric. Really it's been about the TV on the wall. What we're doing with the Smart Room concept, and one of the things that Spectrum Health Ventures is really excited about for us, because of the promise of the breadth of this idea, we're calling Smart Room. It's maybe more should be thought of as a smart hospital campus rather than just a smart room, but we'll call it a smart room because that's where the core of it begins.

We do use tablets at the bedside connected to the electronic medical record and the real-time location systems and the video communication systems that the hospital would want. We do use smart TVs on the wall. That, again, is the core of the idea.

We also are doing things with really cutting-edge displays on the wall to digitize the formerly manual whiteboard. That white, grease board that is woefully, infrequently updated with a dry erase marker. We're able to recreate that in a digital format so that nobody needs to touch it and risk infection. Nobody actually needs to update their medications, or the nurse or attending doctors who are responsible for that particular patient. All of that information can be automated right up to that display by virtue of integration to these other information systems that the hospital is already investing in.

So, we can provide a great deal of efficiency for the staff in not having to manually update those things, but also provide a much better experience because, frankly, it's updated in real time, and we can provide a lot greater density of even visual information for the patient. So, they just get better insights.

We're also doing things like digitizing the door sign outside the patient room so that staff and visitors who might wander by or come over to come into the room see HIPAA-compliant graphical icons that will inform them about what is happening for that patient.

So, if the patient is nothing-by-mouth, or perhaps they're in quarantine themselves, everybody who comes up to that room is going to see in an instant what's happening to that patient in the room. It doesn't require any manual turning of flags or changing of colors of paper or writing anything on a grease board outside the room. It happens in an automated, real time way as well.

We're also doing digital signage across the campus for the hospital. These digital signs, whether it's a directory in the lobby or next to the elevator or something, or if it's a display around a hallway or a cafeteria, or a display in a staff break room -- these are all more digital endpoints where we can push very specific content to that particular rotation.

It's not personalized for a specific patient as the in-room devices are, but they're no less important, and it's no less an opportunity to push information to whoever might be going by those displays, to give them information about what's happening around them.

Perhaps it could be information about the new hand hygiene policy, or explaining in the main lobby of the hospital the new restricted visitation policies to help augment what the staff is sharing with everybody who comes into the hospital, verbally. They can see it on the sign as well.

We can do video walls in the lobby of the hospital to dramatically change the experience of walking into that hospital.

These are just a handful of examples of digital displays all across the entire campus that we think is very promising. Hospitals, fortunately for us, are also appreciating the promise of that kind of technology to really create a different experience for everybody who walks onto the campus, everybody who happens to be a patient, or visiting a patient, or staff who's working in that hospital, whether it's a nurse or doctor or clergy or environmental service or whomever.

The last thing I'll say about the technology innovation is we're also excited to be introducing bring-your-own-device capabilities that will empower the patient in the bed to use their own smart phone and their own tablet to control the system, so they don't even have to use necessarily the hospital-provided device. They can tune the interface to their liking and they can interact with the device on the wall.

Using their own device, they can actually do video visits with their friends or family who are no longer able to come in to visit them, perhaps because of these restricted visitation hours. They can actually have a video encounter with a nurse who's actually at the nurse's station, rather than coming into the room. Perhaps that patient's quarantined.

And then doctors, wherever they might be. Whether they're on campus or even across town, they can do a video consultation or visit with the patient from afar inside that room.

So, giving the staff a great deal of efficiency, while us also keeping them at an appropriate physical distance to minimize the chance that they might pick up a contagion during this pandemic particularly.

We're excited about this technology. Spectrum Health Ventures is quite excited about it, and our client community as well. We're excited to be talking to you about it as well. Thanks for the opportunity.