The following interview is a conversation we had with Richard Queen, CEO and Co-Founder of DignifiHealth, on our podcast Category Visionaries. You can view the full episode here: $7 Million Raised to Drive Better Patient Outcomes in Rural Healthcare and Beyond.
Richard Queen
Yeah, thank you very much for having me.
Brett
Yeah, so before begin talking about what you’re building there, could we just start with a quick summary of who you are and a bit more about your.
Richard Queen
Background around yeah, absolutely. So, as you said, my name is Richard Queen. I’m the current CEO of DignifiHealth, and while I bring an educational background in finance and accounting, I spent 15 years within healthcare operations, both inside of hospitals and independent provider groups. And I tell people I’ve been a technology geek since I could walk. So as a result of that, I’ve really specialized in data and analytics and automation throughout my career, all but automating every job I’ve ever been hired to do. So you typically wouldn’t find me in my office. I’d be in the lab spinning down blood samples. I’ve been in full lead vests next to cardiologists, doing hard casts. I’ve run DaVinci robots. Whatever anybody would let me do, I would do. And truly fell in love with healthcare. I’ve learned it from the ground up and ended up looking at healthcare operations differently.
Richard Queen
As a result, the pinpoint of finance, healthcare, and technology has really allowed me to be multilingual in a world that is so siloed. And so in my last operational role, I spent five years as a CFO of a multi specialty group. And having started Accountable Care organizations from scratch, experiencing firsthand the struggle of delivering today’s value based health care, I created the prototype for DignifiHealth’s core clinical software out of those first aid struggles.
Brett
And would ten year old Richard be surprised that you ended up being Founder? Sorry, Co-Founder and CEO of a tech company?
Richard Queen
Absolutely. That was never on the radar, maybe even five years ago.
Brett
And what was making that transition, like for you, was that most recent position? I think you said it was CFO.
Richard Queen
That’s correct.
Brett
So going from CFO to CEO, what was the most difficult part of making that transition?
Richard Queen
Well, it wasn’t an overnight transition, for sure. Really? It was being able to see the first impact of what were doing with both providers and patients in that setting. I knew I had to break out from that role to see what was possible or I’d regret it the rest of my life. And so during that time, I spent a couple of years making a lot of mistakes and learning a lot of lessons, but was fortunate enough to turn those into things that allowed me to, along with others co found and start DignifiHealth.
Brett
Nice. That’s amazing. Now, a couple of questions that we like to ask just to better understand what makes you tick. First one is what CEO or what Founder do you admire the most and what do you admire about them?
Richard Queen
Yeah, so when thinking about where I learned hard work ethic, humility, trustworthy, being trustworthy, all things that are very important, it may sound cliche, but I’m fortunate enough to call that person my dad. He really instilled these values in me. I guess you could say he and my mom founded my family. So in that sense, he’s a Founder. But teaching me to be grounded in these values, to lead by example, to persevere through challenges, and I really learned through experience the importance of operating in this manner early in my career that wasn’t the case. There was a time when, quote unquote, success was the goal. I wanted the title, I wanted the prestige, I wanted everything else that I sold those who were 30 years older than me having, and it remained out of reach. And so it wasn’t until I learned that success is really not the goal.
Richard Queen
Success is the byproduct of small acts of daily discipline that are done repeatedly. And when operating by these values and in that manner, the goal became disciplined execution. And the natural extension of that is success as a byproduct.
Brett
Amazing. I love that. And what about books? Is there a specific book that’s had a major impact on you as a Founder? And I always say this can be one of the classic business books, but the ones that are really interesting are, I think, more like the personal books that have influenced how you view the world and how you think about the world.
Richard Queen
Yeah, there’s so many that my mind could go to that have been influential. But one that really had an influence early in my career is called The Leader Who Had No Title by a gentleman named Robin Sharma. And what I really keyed in on in that book was the natural, God given strengths that each of us have to perform at the top of our abilities, regardless of our position or title. And in really embracing that, we may face challenges, we may face oppositions and other things. In fact, it’s not a may. We will. But no one can keep us from trying our hardest or being our best. And it’s a joke I make now, especially with my 16 year old son. I use this with him, and he just rolls my bowl of his eyes. But the FMob the first, the most, the only, and the best as an acronym.
Richard Queen
And you got to be there’s a balance there. It’s not out of arrogance or domination. It’s out of grit and determination. Especially when growing a company from the ground up. You have to daily dig deep. It is a roller coaster that is hard to describe to someone unless they’ve been there. And when all odds are stacked against you and every statistic says that you’re going to fail, you have to know that you’re right and that those statistics and obstacles are wrong. And no one can stop you from giving it your all, from overcoming and from finding success. And even that word success, you have to find your definition of along the way. Sure, there’s going to be metrics you have to hit, there’s going to be targets to achieve. But while it may be contrary to some public opinion, the greatest successes really are subjective, not objective fascinating.
Brett
I love that. Now let’s switch gears and let’s dive deeper into the company. So I think I saw online you launched in September 2020, is that correct?
Richard Queen
That’s correct.
Brett
So take me back to September 2020 or the months leading up to that before you launched. What were those early conversations like? What sparked this idea? And then what made you decide, yes, this is it. Let’s go. Yeah.
Richard Queen
So really a bit of a unique origin story. So while CFO of the group that I spoke of earlier, we started taking on risk with our insurance payers and insurance companies, meaning we would contract with them for a certain group of patients to say we are going to create better outcomes in these patients, we’re going to create lower costs. Therefore, that insurance company will share in the savings with us. But what we found out is we had no ability to forecast cost, no ability to forecast utilization, no ability to know what patients needed higher levels of engagement. And so the prototypes that I created at the time began allowing us to see these pieces of information that we just never had access to before, didn’t have at our fingertips before, had an almost immediate impact in the population and in our quality scores that were measured on.
Richard Queen
We started getting compliments from our payers, which, if you work within the healthcare industry, you know how almost comical that sounds. And with little to no disruption to clinical workflow. And so it’s really the results from within the healthcare system that I knew I wanted to see the impact far beyond the walls of that medical practice. And as I said earlier, when leaving that role as a CFO didn’t go straight into DignifiHealth. Tested it in other health systems and other electronic medical records. Like I said, made many mistakes. Fail forward as is. So often said and learned those things that again, fortunate enough to turn those into along with the other co-founders and the early team, fortunate enough to turn those lessons into beginnings of DignifiHealth. And so, as you said, started bootstrapping in mid 2020 and raised a successful seed round to begin operations.
Richard Queen
And now we’re an all in one platform for value based healthcare and we’re bridging the gap between electronic medical records or EMRs, and true clinical decision making. And so through care gap closure, chronic disease management, automated workflows, payer, data feeds and so many other things, we’re providing real time, high impact insights beyond EMRs to help providers and staff shift workflows from reactive to proactive. And the great thing is that we ultimately get to optimize patient outcomes while maximizing financial performance for those health systems.
Brett
And on the topic of fundraising, I know you mentioned there in the pre interview that you’re based in Kentucky. Do you think that may or created any challenges for fundraising? Would your fundraising efforts have been easier if you were in Silicon Valley or New York City or one of the other tech hubs?
Richard Queen
I think the answer has to be yes, and further complicated by the fact that’s not the background from which I came. Coming from an industrial or an industry background I should say those were some of the lessons learned but was fortunate enough to have co-founders and early team that did have some of that success and so really leaning on them in the early days, drinking from a fire hose, as is said to learn and equip and educate myself to be able to approach those meetings and invest arounds and other things. You’re running as fast as you can. And we obviously did something that people saw in light because we set out to raise 3 million and we oversubscribed by more than two X, taking in 7 million on a prototype with some case studies and a very ugly PowerPoint deck.
Brett
And what do you think?
Brett
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Brett
The investors saw in the deck and in you and in the solution that you were building. What do you think got them so excited?
Richard Queen
I think it really was the fact that this crew from within a health system. I like to say that, and I can say this because I am also a tech geek, so this wasn’t some tech geek sitting in their mom’s basement creating something that they think will be useful in healthcare themselves, never having stepped foot into clinical operations. This grew out of clinical operations from someone who just happened to have a technical background and the ability to create a solution while also being involved in the seeing the bottleneck firsthand and understanding how a solution could come. To be so really purpose built, you could say, for healthcare professionals, by healthcare professionals. And having those results that were more than just a pretty PowerPoint deck. They were proven boots on the ground and it was simply a matter of scaling those.
Brett
Yeah. How I like to think about that difference is there’s missionary founders and then mercenary founders, and the missionary founders are like you come from the space, you live these problems, you feel these problems, and then you go out and build a solution. Whereas the mercenaries are the Stanford grads or sorry, Stanford dropouts who see some research report about this massive multibillion dollar opportunity and they say, yes, that’s it, let’s go build a unicorn. So I think that’s a huge difference and I think we’re seeing a rise of missionary entrepreneurs who are really coming out after living these problems and launching solutions, which I think is just a really exciting time. And I’m really excited about all the innovation that’s going to come from that.
Richard Queen
Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. And really, while we are absolutely mission focused in rural healthcare markets and what’s been referred to as flyover markets or healthcare deserts, the majority of continental US. Is very rural in nature and may have access to primary care, but is driving an hour or 2 hours for a specialist. And so with that missional focus toward rural health care, it would be hard for me to say I have that mission if I lived in California. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but when we’re focusing on appalachia regions and rural healthcare across the US. I myself live in Kentucky and participate and partake of healthcare in the Appalachian rural region. So I know firsthand the struggles of both providers and patients, which lets us speak to that in a unique way and maybe connect in a unique way.
Brett
Yeah, I think this adds a lot of credibility. Right. If you were sitting on your penthouse in New York City talking about these healthcare deserts, I think you would not lose credibility, but you wouldn’t have that authenticity. I think that you’re living in these communities that you’re serving. So that makes a whole lot of sense. Now, let’s talk a bit about the platform or the solution or solutions. Can you just walk us through what it looks like for your customers when they start using the product?
Richard Queen
Absolutely. So we have we call a land and expand methodology. And so we have a full platform that does all the things I mentioned earlier around a care deplosure, workflow, automation, payer, data feeds, chronic care management, all the things that are keys to success in value based healthcare. But we don’t start there because that’s overwhelming. And that’s one of the pitfalls we see of so many systems is they’re far too complicated and they forget that their front end users are clinical experts they’re not meant to be It experts. And so we have an incredible amount of sophistication of machine learning and rules, engines and pick your cliche term of the day that’s needed to parse this much data that is generated in healthcare. But we keep that sophistication in the background. And what we deliver to the front end users is very simplistic by design, meaning we reduce the noise.
Richard Queen
We give them what they need when they need it to take action on it, and definitely nothing less, but not a whole lot more, because we want it to be quick and meaningful actions that allows them to get back to being face to face with the patient or whatever their workflow at hand may be. And so we start with just a few key actions going back to my comments around small acts of daily discipline. We land there, and then we expand into the other parts of the platform as they get a handle there, as they begin to see Quick Wins and Quick ROI, and then we expand to the remaining parts of the platform.
Brett
Makes a lot of sense. And can you talk to us about fraction and just any metrics that you can share that highlight the growth that you’re seeing? Our audience always loves to hear metrics.
Richard Queen
Yeah, absolutely. We love to talk about them. So, just a few things offhand. We have a single health system that’s achieved more than $500,000 in direct revenue through a completely automated data feed that we put in place with their payer that health systems never even have to see or set up or be involved with. And they just sit back and collect the checks, but it’s benefiting them and their patients in so many different ways. We have a 300 provider health system that generated $1.5 million in shared surplus last year as part of the Primary Care First program. And given the confidence gained in that program, we’ve now brought them into our ACO Reach program for Performance year 2023, where there’s an estimated $3 million plus shared savings opportunity for them. And while we love to talk about these dollar opportunities because they are so important when most health systems are financially struggling today, these financial outcomes are only achieved when you create better patient outcomes.
Richard Queen
And so even if I don’t always lead with that is built inherent in producing these financial outcomes. A couple of others we have. When we rolled out our chronic care management program last year, in the first 90 days, our collective client base saw an 84% increase in their chronic care management enrollments, which again, has a direct revenue attached to it, but also means they are touching that many more high risk patients in a personal way. We increase point of care gap closure. Typically, when we go into a health system, we see that they are closing eight to eight and a half percent of their care gaps at the point of service and we take that to 40% to 50% plus. Typically within six months, we see quality scores and stars, ratings increase. So many others that I could point to. But for me personally, one of the single greatest statistics that we have in my mind is the fact that 100% of our clients have started with some part of our platform and have then further contracted with us for other parts of our platform showing the value and the partnership that we’re creating with these health systems and then wanting to grow that partnership.
Brett
Wow, so it’s working then. The land and expand approach is working.
Richard Queen
Absolutely.
Brett
And what do you think about your market category? So is it value based care? Is it chronic disease management? What is that actual market category that you’re in?
Richard Queen
You name two that we absolutely fit into. And I think we have to use the term population health just because that’s what people know. It’s a term they’re familiar with. But we’re so much more than that, to your point that you already listed there. And in that sense, we’re really trying to redefine that category. And so much population health is focused on data and analytics, but the largest gap that we see is the one that exists between health system analytics departments and their patients. They may know what or where their opportunities exist, but how are they actioning those? How are they addressing those? How are they getting it both to their frontline clinicians as well as their patients? I actually had a gentleman say to me a few days ago, he was the BPA strategy for a large health system. And he said, I’ve got a great bi team.
Richard Queen
But he said, what do I do with the fact that they tell me 84% of my patients have blue eyes and he’s obviously using hyperbole. But the point remains, you can slice and dice data all day long and get some, maybe some good insights, but if you don’t know how to translate that into action without disrupting clinical workflow, the impact is not going to be there. And so that’s where we truly differentiate dignifyles. We translate population health into individual patient outcomes and we actually help providers close care gaps. We automate payer communication, we maximize financial results, and we are purpose built to drive bottom line impacts for struggling health systems while also producing better patient outcomes, like we said. And so as that all in one platform, we are generating a network of effects.
Brett
And if you reflect on your success and this growth that you’re seeing, what do you think you’ve gotten? Right? I’m sure you’ve experienced this. There’s just a lot of noise in the market today. So how are you able to rise above the noise and what are you doing to rise above all that noise?
Richard Queen
Yeah, I think a large part of that comes down to really understanding our front end users and knowing the struggles that they face on a daily basis. Some of the busiest people in a L system are the frontline nurses and medical secretaries and registration staff and those that maybe we take for granted on a day to day basis. But they’re so overwhelmed with so many things that they have to take care of for their providers, for their patients. They have patients calling on the phone, patients in front of them at the desk and they don’t have time to learn a new system or be working out of multiple systems or other things. And so part of that, not only me, I told you my background story, but others on our team come from healthcare operational backgrounds, know clinic operations very well, but we also sat in those seats.
Richard Queen
We beat our head against those same walls that so many of our prospective clients are today. And so we get to share those same war stories, which allows us to connect first on a personal level, understanding the unique challenges that each other is facing, but then get to tell the story of how we created. What we created, why we created what we did and how it fits into what they’re doing and how it at least takes away a few walls that they’re beating their head against. And so I think it’s really that domain expertise and knowledge and background inside of healthcare operations that allows us to be a little different than maybe your run of the mill healthcare technology, quote unquote vendor.
Brett
And let’s zoom out into the future. So let’s say maybe three or five years from today. What’s that big picture vision that you’re working towards?
Richard Queen
Well, who doesn’t want to ring the bell on Wall Street or have that great acquisition story? So I’d be lying if I didn’t say we dream about that from time to time, but it’s certainly not the day to day operating assumption or even goal. Going back to my comment earlier about success being a byproduct and so again, talking about how we define success, the goal is to create a profitable, sustainable company that is continuing to expand the impact that we’re making with patients, providers and communities. Because when those communities get to tell the stories of impacts made within the patients and people in those communities, we love to share those stories and those are the ones that we want to see repeated. And so how do we take those at our current base of operations and clients and expand those to more and more stories being told across rural America?
Brett
Amazing. I love it. Richard, we are up on time, so we’re going to have to wrap before we do. If people want to follow along with your journey as you continue to build.
Brett
Where should they go?
Richard Queen
Definitely dignifihealth.com and then you can find me personally as well as DignifiHealth on LinkedIn and pretty active there. So please take a look, follow us and if you hear anything or know someone at a health system this would beneficial toward. Please have them reach out. We’d love to talk to them, see what their struggles are and how we may be able to offer a few solutions.
Brett
Amazing. Richard, thank you so much for taking the time to talk about what you’re building and share some of those lessons that you’ve learned along the way. This has been super fun conversation and wish you the best of luck in executing on this awesome vision.
Richard Queen
Absolutely. Thank you so much.
Brett
All right, keep it Dutch. This episode of Category Visionaries is brought. To you by Front Lines Media, Silicon Valley’s leading podcast production studio. If you’re a PDB Founder looking for help launching and growing your own podcast, visit frontlines.io podcast. And for the latest episode, search for Category Visionaries on your podcast platform of choice. Thanks for listening and we’ll catch you on the next episode.