The digitalization of health involves many challenges, one of which is the integration of health data. Many companies have mobilized around this demand, one of them being CM Technology, an investment by Green Rock. The company is a pioneer in the digital patient experience and a leader in health APIs. In an exclusive interview, Fernando Soares, founder and CEO of Healthtech, tell me about Gap who saw in the sector, how the company inserted itself integrating ERPs and the challenges it sees in this context of interoperability, among other points.
Check out the key points from the interview below.
Could you tell me a bit about the history of CM and the gap that you saw?
We launched a tool to solve the patient's digital experience and improve the care of providers (hospitals, clinics, and laboratories). We started with two large clients in Belo Horizonte and it was a success, because the patient loved to schedule and choose their appointment, exam, doctor, time and day online, while for the provider it was a reduction in cost and a gain in operational efficiency.
Then we created what we call Digital Patient Journey, that is, with the same focus on improving this digital experience and improving the service indicator of the providers. Then, in addition to online scheduling, we developed automatic confirmation, eligibility already connected to the plans, patient portal and online results. Today, we delivered a complete Digital Patient Journey service, fully integrated into hospitals, clinics and laboratories.
From there, an idea came up. What we were doing was already data interoperability between the scheduling system and the institution's ERP system. We saw a larger market, which was that of integration and interoperability. We saw that with our connectivity expertise, we would be able to deliver a good tool to the market.
We took the round with DNA Capital and Green Rock and built the interoperability platform. We went to the market in 2019 with a new Business Unit of connectivity and integration. Today we integrate more than 13 market solutions, we have hundreds of Endpoints and APIs that connect service providers and health products such as the pharmaceutical industry, startups, Healthtechs in hospitals, clinics and laboratories. Our main focus for the future is to continue scaling this Digital Patient Journey platform, which we are going to reposition as a Patient Engagement Platform and be the leading integrator of healthcare data.
What do you believe is the biggest health challenge in Brazil with regard to interoperability?
Look, I think the biggest challenge is Mindset of health managers. There is still a way for them to understand that integration and interoperability generate efficiency, cost reduction, and improvement of the physician and patient experience. I think the second challenge is real investment. The health sector needs to understand that investing in technology pays off in every aspect. And then there is also a third challenge, which is the maturity of the sector as a whole, in the sense of understanding that the data belongs to the patient and that we need to interoperate them to provide more efficient, cheaper and more accessible health for everyone.
What do you think is missing to achieve greater maturity? Is it the question of the mindset itself or do you think there is some other point?
I was going to go back to the point of Mindset. Of course, looking back when we founded the company, we see that the sector evolved a lot with respect to Mindset, Healthtechs and solutions that attempt to remedy several Gaps of the sector. But I think there's still a lot left. The technology is ready. Why can't a healthtech that solves a major hospital problem sell to 300 hospitals? There is no scale of distribution and infrastructure in the health area. The issue of investment, of Mindset, all of this will bring maturity to the sector.
One of CM's great challenges is precisely to change this mindset in a segment where mistrust is the standard, right? How have you been doing this?
Those are three big points. The first of these is to educate the sector through content production. We are creating content, explaining and showing the sector what the benefits are. When we talk about interoperability, we have several stakeholders: patient, doctor, provider, pharmaceutical industry, etc. Each of them has a logic and an interest. So this is very complex. The second point is to try to show them that the platform has an infrastructure that guarantees security, reliability and that this integration follows a pattern. Finally, the third point is to show that we are not selling technology or infrastructure, but rather value. I'll give you an example. Memed and Anestech are Healthtechs partners: they sell their solution and we joined as an integrating partner. So, in the end, the hospital sees that, with CM, the project was completed in 5 business days. In other words, delivering value at the edge quickly is another way of showing how much interoperability is helping them. Good for hospitals, partners, system users, good for everyone.
How do you assess that the market has been responding to these challenges? Do you believe that we are doing well?
I believe that we are taking short steps, but in the health sector they are “Baby Steps” really. There is no exponential growth when we talk about Healthtechs. But I believe that what has worked the most is healing Gaps that generate value for some Stakeholder important in prison. So, I'm not selling interoperability to hospitals, I'm selling them a value that, connected with a material and drug distribution company, generates great value for hospitals in terms of errors, purchases, reduced inventory, and also generates visibility of inventory, delivery, and efficiency for the distribution company.
If we look at a sector that is about 10/15 years ahead, such as Fintechs, we see that infrastructure is being sold there. But the health sector is still far behind this, so I think that selling infrastructure and API may not be the way to show the efficiency of interoperability.
How do you compare the Brazilian context with the international scene?
Health in Brazil, like many verticals, has a different context from the rest of the world. The sector here is very complex, and I'm talking only about supplementary health. With regard to health plans, sometimes there is a group of hospitals that make agreements with certain plans and there is a very large volume of rules that increase this complexity. It is very difficult for the sector to lower the cost. Today we see operators with negative margins and hospitals pedaling.
When we look at the United States, we notice that the country already has a standardization of connectivity that we don't have here. In England, too, we already see interoperability; in Israel and China, the data is already integrated. Meanwhile, here in Brazil there is still a Mindset very focused on “the data is from the hospital, or the clinic”, when, in fact, it belongs to the patient. All of this makes this process difficult.
I will cite the example of Open Banking, which is something that banks didn't want in the beginning. It was a forced movement because it was understood that this data needed to be interoperable for the good of the user and the sector as a whole. When we look at the Players In terms of health, there are some out there, especially in the United States, that already have extensive interoperability due to the standardization of connectivity there. In order to reach that level of maturity, there must also be a standard. It's very complex, but again, health evolves with”Baby Steps”.
Late last year, a law came into effect in the United States that transfers ownership of health data to patients. Do you understand that Brazil has a long way to go?
Look, the technological solution is something that CM has. Our intention is that up front you can log in to your iPhone, click on “health” and access your medical record, for example, from Einstein, from the Fleury laboratory, from the Nove de Julho Hospital, or any other group. Technologically, we already delivered this today. Now, in order for us to actually have access to all groups, there should be a player, whether Android, Apple, a SUS app or a startup, that will create a wallet Cheers, go buy this fight and use our interoperability connector. I think there will be some Player to buy into this fight in the short term and, at a later date, it will be a matter of regulation, Open Health coming from the government.
Another point is that in the United States this law came into force, but Epic, for example, which is a medical records company, was already interoperating data between its clients, using its ERP. But to integrate others, the company closed down. So, like that, there's a whole strategy of Lock-in.
What is the greatest value of this data integration?
I believe that it is the autonomy that we, as patients, have and deserve from our own data. If we think of a chronic patient, for example, that the doctor needs the result of an MRI performed years ago or several results of tests performed in recent years, the lack of data integration makes this difficult. The patient is running after each place to get the data and everything is unstandardized. So I think the greatest value lies in us, as patients, having our health in our hands.
And what are CM's next steps?
We're going to do a rebranding next month. We are going to change our value offer to the market in the digital patient journey unit, delivering something much broader and with more modules in an offer that is not available on the market today. In the interoperability unit, we will deliver clear solutions and business cases for various health subverticals that need and want to integrate into hospitals. So, we hope that the next steps will help us to scale and grow even more, in addition to creating that competitive differential in the market. The idea of changing the name also represents a symbolic change, since we are going through a phase of rebuilding our value proposition. Our solutions have evolved and increased their deliveries, which is why we wanted to reformulate our positioning.
What advice would you give to future health entrepreneurs?
Focus on a major pain in the sector, slice through that pain, and attack straight to the point. Trying to solve all problems at the same time will paralyze the entrepreneur, especially in terms of health. Creating a power point or an excel where the company will make billions is easy, but delivering value and fighting against it Mindset it's very difficult. It is necessary to have a lot of resilience. It is necessary to look at a great pain and deliver value little by little, because there is space in the market.
