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Saul Marquez:
Hey everybody! Welcome back to the Outcomes Rocket Podcast. And we’re here at ViVE in Nashville, Tennessee. I’ve got the pleasure of being here with Mark Erwich. He is the chief marketing officer of Verato. Mark is an innovative and internationally experienced senior marketing executive with more than 30 years of success across healthcare IT industries. Leveraging extensive experience leading marketing strategies, he has a passion for building data-driven marketing systems that empower creative marketing teams to thrive and perform. His broad areas of expertise include brand positioning, go-to-market strategy, account-based marketing, product marketing, marketing operations, and many more. Throughout his career, Mark has held leadership positions at Imprivata, Nuance, and Apple, and today he’s here speaking on behalf of Verato. So Mark, such a pleasure to have you here with us.
Mark Erwich:
I’m excited to be here, Saul. Thank you so much for the invitation.
Saul Marquez:
It’s a pleasure to have you. Now, before we get started, I want to ask you, Mark, what is it that inspires your work in innovation?
Mark Erwich:
So about 20 years ago, I started to work for a company that later on became Nuance, and at that time, I realized the impact that technology could have towards healthcare. And with the amazing things that Nuance did at that time and the impact that you have not only on better care, but also on cost-increasing revenues, and more predictable outcomes, visibility towards the entire care journey, I think I’ve seen that over and over again. That was at Nuance, that was later on at Imprivata, and now again at Verato. It’s really important that we improve healthcare, and for me, waking up in the morning and knowing that I have the ability to help making things better is just super motivating.
Saul Marquez:
Yeah, for sure, and you’ve been with some great companies and have created some great success. Last year you launched a new platform and a new category, HMDM or Master Data Management for Healthcare. Can you tell us a little bit more about the new category and why you launched it?
Mark Erwich:
Totally. We come from a world where there is an enormous amount of data about patients, about providers, and what we saw in the market was that different healthcare organizations were managing that with different systems, an EMPI, a, maybe a provider data management solution, maybe a MDM for consumer. So all of these disparate systems were not really connected and still trying to bring data together. So we were thinking, hey, we need to help solve that in towards the industry, and we took an approach of building an MDM. But as MDM in healthcare has not been really successful, it takes many months, maybe even multiple years to implement and many challenges along the way. So we created an MDM, dedicated master data management solution, dedicated for healthcare, specifically built for healthcare and addressing the requirements in healthcare. And we did that by leveraging an enormous database that we have built and taking care of the entire US population, including patients, including consumers, and including providers. Have all of that, that entire data set in there, which allows us to have a very rich ability to do a matching technology and have the highest level of accuracy possible. We launched that, and with that, we created the ability for our customers that are in healthcare along the entire care journey, so providers, payers, but also state and local and HIEs to create that 360 view of a patient or of a consumer or of a provider. We’ve launched that in September, as you mentioned, Saul, and the success has been tremendous. We get a lot of interest from our customers, from new prospects, and others to see how we can help solving this identity problem, which is really critical in healthcare.
Saul Marquez:
Yeah, for sure. And so, Mark, just to level set, tell us a little bit about Verato. What would you say is the core value proposition?
Mark Erwich:
Yeah, so it’s really solving the identity problem, right? And we look towards the identity for every individual in healthcare. We’re talking about the patient, but we’re also talking about the consumer. Even before this patient has entered the care journey, we want to make sure that that patient is recognized in, for instance, a CRM system, from the CRM system in towards the EHR and maybe all the other systems. I mean, walking around on a show like ViVE, you see all these vendors, these vendors have the ability to capture patient data. So it sits in many different systems. We see sometimes customers with 50, 60 different applications, with patient data provider data. We’re helping to bring that all together to connect that and making sure that there is, really, this one unique identifier linking all of these individuals, and with that, create a 360 view and really allow the providers, our customers, to understand who is who.
Saul Marquez:
That’s fantastic, thank you for that. With so many systems, it’s important to have clarity and really follow a patient through the care journey from before they’re admitted to when they’re discharged. And now with hospital-at-home programs through their care at home.
Mark Erwich:
Right.
Saul Marquez:
So great opportunity for Verato to add value there. Why is accurate identity data so important in healthcare?
Mark Erwich:
This is a great question. I love that question, Saul. So, what you see is the accuracy matters for looking towards all of the different aspects, whether it’s patient care or whether it’s the revenue or providing actionable insights in towards that care journey, and let me give you an example. When you would participate at a local road race, and you write in your form, and the local hospital is sponsoring that, they take your name, Saul Marquez, with an S at the end, for instance, you get in towards their CRM system, and months later when you go in towards the hospital, they’re not matching that because it’s a misspelling, they only look towards like the basics and trying to match it from that way. We’re able to match that, that’s a level of accuracy that we bring. If you look towards denied claims, there may be a misspelling, or there may be something wrong. An earlier episode is not referenced, so we again, making sure that she is there, looking towards a patient that first goes towards like a clinic where they’re on Allscripts and later on goes towards the acute hospital of the even of the same IDN, they’re not matching that. So accuracy is critical for better care, critical for cost and revenues, and also critical to get that insight at any level.
Saul Marquez:
Thanks, Mark. And I mean, gosh, I can tell you, like I’ve had software accounts and membership accounts where they had my wrong email, and the entire process was frustrating. Like I remember going to this business program, and I did all my homework, all the modules, everything. And then, it was time to go to class and present. And I get a call from the program manager, and she says, I’m calling you because you haven’t done anything. And I’m like, what do you mean? And I was just like, I’ve done everything. I’m like, What email do you have, right? And this happens a lot in healthcare, and that is a business situation, but in the healthcare space, it could be fatal.
Mark Erwich:
Totally, it could be fatal, and you touch on another good thing, which is the patient experience. These people are already under stress, right? Like nothing worse than being in a hospital. And then they’re asking you for like, information which you have already provided. Like nothing could be more stressful and frustrating than that particular scenario. So we’re happy to help different providers, that’s why we see so much interest. And I think what’s interesting, over time, more and more organizations start to realize that identity is actually foundational, and you build other solutions on top of it. So we’re really excited to be part of that solution towards healthcare.
Saul Marquez:
That’s awesome. And I’m glad you mentioned the patient experience, Mark, because it’s been such a focus throughout this event. It needs to be. As healthcare becomes more consumerized, we have to do more to make the experience better, so start from the root, and that’s what you’re up to.
Mark Erwich:
Totally, yeah, really excited about that. And I think the experience comes in not only the misspellings and the inaccuracies in data, but we also add in additional data elements. SDOH data, for instance, so as a result, one of our customers looks towards, hey, here are the different patients, which are communities where there’s challenges with transportation. So they can identify that can proactively reach out to them and offer Uber or Lyft or other means of transportation making that work. Or, so that’s one example, another example is looking towards, hey, there’s challenges with food. So all of these data elements create a much richer view towards, hey, how does my community look like, and what can we do to better serve our patients?
Saul Marquez:
That’s great, Mark, thank you. One thing that healthcare organizations might be thinking is, yeah, this is important, but let’s make it granular, right? Let’s make it clear. How can knowing who is who help a healthcare organization’s bottom line?
Mark Erwich:
Yeah, totally. I think I gave some examples, but the one thing that I’m really excited about, about two weeks, three weeks ago, we were on the phone with one of our customers, and they were sharing this, what they’re doing. So basically, they take all of that data they have that run of all of their patients and looking towards all of the clinical data run through our system, and then with that, they’re creating specific profiles of higher propensity for certain diseases. So they look towards, hey, within this category, we see these type of criteria, they create a model of that, and then they take that model, completely strip it out of any personal data, obviously, and then they match that towards their CRM. So within their CRM, now they have high likelihood of patients, they can do proactive outreach, so with that, they’re increasing their revenue. So that’s one example of increasing revenue, and then similarly on decreasing costs like helping, reducing the number of denied claims as a perfect example, where we can help or reducing readmissions. So there’s all these different examples where the accuracy of data really matters. Having the right patient and making sure the right patient is matched in your systems across the entire care journey.
Saul Marquez:
Yeah, and even, I mean my mind goes to programs for adherence, and you’re spending dollars on, in getting mailers out and sending messages out like.
Mark Erwich:
Totally.
Saul Marquez:
You gotta make sure they get to the, where they need to get.
Mark Erwich:
Yeah, and I think that’s one of the things that I’m super passionate about. As you mentioned, I’m Chief Marketing Officer, so I speak to peers at hospitals, right? And they look towards that challenge, Well, I’m spending money, but my boss, the CEO of the hospital, wants to know where does that money go. And we’re allowing them to create visibility on the effectiveness because now they can connect their CRM data towards their EHR data, and they can actually see, hey, there’s patients are coming in, and there’s actually an impact of the campaigns that we’re running.
Saul Marquez:
Totally, I love that, and I’m a marketing guy, too, so I appreciate that. Mark, thank you so much for this, huge opportunity. Are you having issues with knowing who is who, sorting through your data on identity? This podcast episode is for you, and so make sure you take a look at the show notes to find out how to get in touch with Verato, how to get in touch with Mark because this is the time to take action. Now is the time. So Mark, talk to me about what you want the listeners to take away today.
Mark Erwich:
I think healthcare is personal, nobody will doubt about that. And so, in no other industry is more important to know who is who and Verato can help.
Saul Marquez:
Love that. Short, sweet, that make the call, send the email, guys. You will get Mark’s accurate information. Mark, thanks for being with us.
Mark Erwich:
Thank you. It was my pleasure.
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