Welcome to WayFinding: Something That Can Change Everything

25+ years ago, I decided to focus my time and energy on fixing healthcare. It was evident that the system was broken, and I knew that technology could make a huge difference because we saw the impact it had in almost every other industry. My commitment to transforming healthcare was also personal. My son was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes at 8 years old, and the stark gaps within the system became more evident to me than ever before.

Since then, I have only grown more passionate about transforming the status quo in healthcare . . . and I would suggest that no industry needs innovation more because being healthy is the most important thing for living a fulfilling life and for a successful economy. Building a high-quality, easy-to-use, and accessible system of health and care is critical both for keeping each of us healthy and for getting us the care we need when we need it most.

I have been fortunate to build companies that have made it their mission to address some of the most critical challenges in health and care and to work alongside great teams who have made a measurable difference in these areas.

At Enterprise Systems, we developed surgery scheduling systems that made it safer to receive high-quality surgery using checklists . . . years before Atul Gawande wrote his seminal work The Checklist Manifesto.

At Allscripts, our first objective was to pry script pads out of the hands of physicians, and we introduced the country to at-scale electronic prescribing, which would save countless lives over the years I served as CEO. Electronic prescribing was the springboard for developing usable Electronic Health Records (EHRs).  We worked with tens of thousands of independent physician practices – outside of the four walls of the hospital.  It was great because they provided instant feedback when their EHR wasn’t as usable and useful as it should be and we learned quickly because they wouldn’t pay you if they didn’t like it . . . so we developed, with their help, very usable EHRs, unlike what we have today, which largely emanated from hospital EHRs.

At Livongo, we impacted the lives of millions of people with Diabetes (including my youngest son Sam) and other chronic conditions. We made testing strips free and available to reorder at any time with the tap of a finger, all at no extra cost. We also used technology to stay connected to our Members and created a new category called Applied Health Signals, an early predecessor to the AI and data science of today. We could anticipate when people might need additional support or be headed for trouble. We created an experience people loved, improved the quality of care, and did so at lower costs. 

Following my time at Livongo, many former clients reached out and asked how we could do what we did for Livongo for the rest of healthcare . . . to remove the complexity, confusion, and cost from the current ‘sickcare’ system and offer an experience – from primary care to complex care – that would make it easy to access high-quality, affordable health and care.

In building Transcarent, our early team met with people of all different needs and backgrounds – young and old, across party lines and gender identities, with different ethnic, racial, and cultural backgrounds, spanning many different lifestyles and careers – and their vision became ours: they wanted us to make it easy and deliver One Place to go for addressing all of their health and care needs. We decided that place would be their phone . . . which would be the most convenient no matter who was in need of care . . . right in the palm of our hands.

But, as we all know, healthcare is complex. Health consumers (all of us) don’t always pay for our healthcare or we pay for only a part of it. And we don’t negotiate for it . . . we’re not the buyers – for 60% of Americans our employers are. We have little, if any, information on quality or cost, leaving people with surprise bills and many times, improper use of care. The status quo requires the average consumer to understand their benefits, seek out proper clinical guidance, and then find where to get care.

Employers have shared that engagement is one of the greatest challenges facing their populations. When we started Transcarent, we had a lot of important pieces, but we needed a unifying experience to bring it all together . . .  to make it easy for our Members . . . and to address the challenges faced by employers. It was never about the technology itself, but rather using technology to create a new and different experience that would simplify the entire process so people could get healthier sooner.

And that brings us to today. I’m so excited to introduce WayFinding, which brings Generative AI to Transcarent’s Member experience, and for the first time, combines benefits navigation, clinical guidance, and care delivery all in One Place. Now is a critical time for AI. It’s everywhere . . . and because we made the investment at the right time, we have close to 1 million chat conversations (and counting) informing our technology that fuels our Just Ask Transcarent™ platform experience. It answers all the questions a person would take to HR or commonly, Google. This technology gets you the right answers and orients you in the direction of better health. It equips you with trusted guidance to make the best decisions for your health, monitors your results (and reorients you when needed) until you reach your desired health outcome.

This is the future delivered today. For the first time, health and care that we can really love. Think of moving from the flip phone, that did one thing, to the iPhone, that did everything. That’s the shift WayFinding brings to the health and care experience.

So, I couldn’t be more excited to welcome each of you to the future of health and care. Read our press release here. Welcome to WayFinding.