Enormous data is generated due to digitization in healthcare. This data needs to be amassed on a single platform. More than ever before, now healthcare service providers need a common ground that gives them an overview of their patients, improves healthcare services, minimizes expenditure, and provides cost-effective care.
Gathering all the data, storing, and analyzing them, however, is not possible for healthcare service providers. Here is where data service providers come to the picture.
Healthcare data includes collecting, storing, managing, and transmitting patients’ electronic medical record, the hospital’s operational management and other information. With all the data under one roof, healthcare providers save time and energy that were otherwise utilized for gathering data from various channels. There are several healthcare data service companies that are helping healthcare establishments to integrate data and have an easy access to it.
Innovaccer Inc. is one such company that is contributing significantly to the healthcare service provider industry. It is a leading medical services data activation organization aiming to deliver more effective medical care using pioneering examination and transparent, clean, and accurate information.
The company was recognized as Best HealthTech Startup in Entrepreneur India 2021, received Future Young Leader (Future Young Leader Organization) leadership award, and many more.
Ankit Maheshwari, who is the Founding Member, President, R&D, and India Operations at Innovaccer, shared his opinion and experiences about the health-tech industry in the following interview.
Please brief our audience about Innovaccer Inc., its mission, and the key aspects of its stronghold within the healthcare technology services niche.
Innovaccer Inc. is a leading San Francisco-based healthcare technology company committed to helping healthcare care as one. Our solutions have been deployed across more than 1,000 care settings in the U.S., enabling more than 37,000 providers to transform care delivery and work collaboratively with payers and life sciences companies.
We have helped organizations integrate medical records for more than 24 million people and generate more than $600 million in savings. Innovaccer is recognized as a Best in KLAS vendor for 2021 in population health management and a No. 1 customer-rated vendor by Black Book.
We envision connected healthcare working collaboratively to keep people healthy and well. Our mission is to connect and curate the world’s healthcare information to make it accessible and useful. With Innovaccer, everyone works in the service of patients like never before—as one.
Innovaccer stands for Innovation Accelerator, and we are the leading platform for connecting providers, payers, patients, and pharma so that everyone in healthcare can care as one. The Innovaccer Health Cloud is the next big advancement in the pursuit of our mission. It unifies patient data across systems and settings and empowers healthcare organizations to rapidly develop scalable, modern applications that improve clinical, operational, and financial outcomes.
Tell us more about the offerings that give Innovaccer Inc. a distinctive edge to stand out from the competition?
What sets Innovaccer apart is that it was the first to deliver plug-and-play connectivity with pre-built connectors. This feature ensures that the data analytics company’s customers have access to real-time, state-of-the-art analytics, which in turn puts Innovaccer ahead of its competition.
The Innovaccer Health Cloud provides a whole-person data model. The architecture enables partner apps and new solution development through its platform, which contains a separate Data activation platform, configurable application suites, and developer tool capabilities. The platform’s entire design has been created, keeping all stakeholders in the care cycle in mind, and is, therefore, extremely user-friendly.
We wanted to make using the solution a piece of cake for the people, and the platform is such that no one has to spend more than minutes trying to understand it. We have a dedicated clinical team of some of the world’s most renowned clinicians assisting us in our end-user approach. Tremendously reputed technology luminaries helm our engineering vertical, and we are committed to making our data activation platform extremely agile, fast, and secure.
To understand the core problems that the healthcare industry is subjected to, we have a one-of-a-kind strategic advisory council consisting of the world’s most prestigious physician leaders, educationalists, technology wizards, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders. Our employees work in close collaboration with them to create the most relevant solutions that not just solve a problem but eliminate it on a grassroots level.
What is your opinion on the effects of the current pandemic on the healthcare sector, and what challenges did you face during the initial phase of the pandemic?
The pandemic has been nothing less than a World War, an irrepressible situation to navigate that has severely affected businesses and establishments across industries. COVID19 exposed our healthcare system’s weaknesses. We need a more robust technology backbone to support us. For example, organizations can use command centers to improve their operations, and providers can reach people using virtual (remote) visits for care and consultation, which is the future beyond today’s four walls of healthcare.
There were, of course, numerous challenges when the pandemic forced us all into a lockdown initially. The “work-from-home” system, although already in place at Innovaccer, was still new to most. Bringing the synergy from our open office layout to Zoom calls was a hurdle that took time to overcome. We depended significantly on technology for collaboration between teams.
The WFH burnouts could not be ignored, especially considering that various teams and members worked in four different time zones. Our Ministry of Fun (People Operations) stepped up to the challenge with several team-building exercises and game nights to give us all some respite from non-stop working. We did not give up on our cause during the pandemic. It became yet another reason for us to fight for our mission even harder.
With continuous development in technologies such as AI and big data, what is your prediction about the future of the healthcare software services market?
Healthcare is on the brink of a massive transformation. Over the last ten years, the industry has spent billions of dollars in digitizing healthcare information with great success. That was step #1 of the journey. Now, we have troves of information on our health locked in electronic silos. We need to bring this information together using a cloud platform that not only unlocks the power of the data but also provides a platform on which new digital services and solutions can be built with native interoperability.
Innovaccer provides the missing link in healthcare technology. Now more than ever, customers need a platform that allows them to obtain a 360-degree view of their patients, drive down unnecessary IT costs, and improve care quality and cost-effectiveness. With the launch of Innovaccer Health Cloud, we are building the platform that will power the future of health.
As an established leader, what would be your advice to the budding entrepreneurs and enthusiasts aspiring to venture into the healthcare software services niche?
The healthcare industry is a very diverse field. Each region across the globe has its problems and challenges when it comes to this sector, thereby requiring unique solutions in every new location. To create the perfect solutions for your customers, you must first understand their needs and then the root of the problem. Having a clinical team or an advisory board of medical personnel with several years of experience in that particular location would help profusely in this quest.
Another essential aspect is knowing the ideal environment that your systems would require to work perfectly. There will be times when you will have to fine-tune your solutions to suit the needs of your users, but for that, you need to comprehend the commitments of your system first. You should not aim for perfection but rather the ability to do quick iterations based on user feedback.
In addition to this, you should always remain on top of learning about the competitive landscape. Healthcare may be a diverse industry, but it is also a growing one. New solutions and products are cropping up every day, and you need to keep your offerings up-to-date and unique at all times to win here.
How do you envision scaling Innovaccer Inc. operations and offerings in 2021?
Data platforms are the future. Many companies are on the path, but not many in the context of healthcare. For instance, the foundation of companies like Spotify or Netflix is a powerful data storage and analytics machinery to provide a customized experience to its users. We believe that such a comprehensive data platform is still missing in healthcare, and we want to orchestrate the shift in that direction.
To begin with, we want to scale the 25 million patients currently on the Innovaccer Health Cloud platform to 1 billion globally. For this, we invest significantly in R&D and a 5X expansion of our go-to-market teams globally. Additionally, we want to open the platform for our partners to build on top of our capabilities.
Our solutions will cater to the needs of tomorrow and are already gaining sufficient traction. We aim to not only help healthcare organizations improve care quality and reduce operational costs but to also make lives easier for every individual in a care-delivery model.
The next big horizon is building an expanding ecosystem where partners and health-tech innovators can develop on top of our Health Cloud Platform, enabling more value to the users. For example, how do we bring in life sciences and pharma companies to do clinical trials on the same platform?
In the coming days, we will continue expanding our base and keep rolling out solutions and updates that genuinely address even the most minute challenges healthcare professionals face. We are also open to exploring new geographies, if and when we have a product-fit and relevant use-cases.
Exhibiting Excellence
2018:
- Forbes AI Companies To Know In Healthcare
- 25 Machine Learning Startups To Watch In 2018 – Forbes
- Best ‘Healthcare Big Data Platform’ by MedTech
2019:
- Deloitte’s 2019 Technology Fast 500™
- Forbes AI companies to know in healthcare in 2019
- 25 Machine Learning Startups To Watch In 2019 – Forbes
- ‘Best Healthcare Big Data Platform’ in 2019 MedTech Breakthrough Awards
2020:
- #738 on the 2020 Inc. 5000 America’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies List
- Top Emerging Healthcare IT Startups
- Fast 500 North America 2020 – Deloitte
- CB Insights Digital Health 150
- Largest East Bay Tech Employers – San Francisco Business Times
2021:
- Best in KLAS vendor for Population Health Management 2021
- #64 on the Inc. 5000 Regionals: California list
- Black Book #1 Customer-rated Data Activation Platforms and Healthcare Data Integration Systems
- One of 50 Best Data Science Firms to work for in India by Analytics India Magazine
- #22 in Largest Bay Area Digital Health Companies (San Francisco Business Times 2021)
- 50 Best Firms In India For Data Scientists To Work For (Analytics India Magazine)
- Inc. 5000 rank #871 – 2021
Leadership Awards:
- Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia 2017: Enterprise Tech
- 35 under 35 Entrepreneurs in India in 2021 (Entrepreneur India)
- Rising Stars in Healthcare (Becker’s Hospital Review)
- Founders to Look out for in 2016 (Economic Times)
- 40 under 40 Data Scientists (Analytics India Magazine 2020)
- 40 Under 40 Data Scientists Award (Analytics India Magazine 2021)
- Techpreneur Class of 2021 (Entrepreneur India 2021)
- 35 under 35 (Entrepreneur India 2021)
About the Ankit Maheshwari
As a founding team member, Ankit Maheshwari has been an essential part of bringing the five-people-in-a-basement organization to the enterprise and unicorn it is today. He has been at the helm of Innovaccer’s Engineering vertical. He has worked closely with the organization’s clients and partners over the years to develop and deploy industry-leading Data Activation Platform at more than 1000 healthcare practices across the globe.
He focused his energies on developing and executing strategies for accelerating growth and innovation. His unparalleled technical expertise, passion for coding, and commitment to development (shared by his team) made Innovaccer one of the fastest-growing SaaS-based companies globally.
In his cross-functional role, along with leading the entire Engineering and Product verticals, he also heads Innovaccer’s overall India Operations. He brings a unique strategic advantage while maintaining and solidifying the organization.
Ankit also represented Innovaccer at the White House (West Wing) for the 2019 Blue Button Developers Conference. The event explored how stakeholders can best leverage technology to unleash the next generation of healthcare innovation. He showcased the company’s expertise on how developers and healthcare organizations can leverage the Data Activation Platform to add value for providers, researchers, payers, and many more across various domains in healthcare.
