G.T.Laborde & Mukul Mehra, Founders, Illumicare
The digital revolution in the medical industry has well and truly begun. Electronic Health R ecords (EHR) are already at the center of most healthcare-related operations due to the convenience and speed of the platforms. As a result, more and more players have started to enter the EHR market by putting their own innovative spin to this revolutionary healthcare technology. However, due to the complications and cost overheads that surround this business, not everyone has made it big in the industry. In many cases, such added challenges have ultimately resulted in the compromise of the very purpose the technology was built for —efficiency.
Taking this into account, Mukul Mehra, a gastroenterologist, and G.T. LaBorde, a well-established entrepreneur, decided to venture into the EHR industry as joint partners. Given how complicated an EMR system can get, they set out to devise a solution that improves productivity and promotes optimal patient treatment while cutting costs at the same time. With this as their primary goal, the pair co-founded IllumiCare, a point-of-care technology company, with a focus on cost-effectiveness and clinical efficiency.
The Beginning
The birth of IllumiCare can be traced back to 2014 when G.T. LaBorde met Mukul Mehra at a new parent preschool event. This is when Mukul proposed a business idea based on the numerous experiences he’s had as a doctor using the EHR.
“One of Mukul’s patients was a woman with Crohn’s Disease who, in the course of three years, had undergone 18 separate CT Scans. That’s the radiation equivalent of standing one mile from the Hiroshima bomb twice,” says LaBorde.
Mukul’s idea was geared towards tackling such alarming circumstances. It grew out of a genuine concern for patient safety and the harms caused by overutilization. Their aim was to help patients avoid such unnecessary tests and better preserve their health. The result would not only be better clinical decision making, but significant savings in spending clinicians can largely control . And they planned to do all this through the power of technology.
Delivering a Comprehensive Suite of Apps
IllumiCare’s technology, the Smart Ribbon, utilizes an app-based setup that fits simply into the user’s existing workflow by hovering unobtrusively over the EMR screen. It does not require any sort of login making it easier for the medical professionals and also delivers critical data at the time of decision making. The Smart Ribbon boasts a comprehensive suite of apps for health system’s to choose to offer on their Smart Ribbon. The experience is highly customizable, even to the needs and preferences of specific users.
IllumiCare’s continues to develop more apps that bring more usability to the table. These apps alleviate major blind spots in critical information around opioid exposure, population health measurement, predictive analytics, antimicrobial stewardship, HHIF, and more. IllumiCare works alongside other third-party vendors as well to create apps within the Smart Ribbon that display their analytics in its workflow friendly view.
Following an Effective Cost Saving Strategy
IllumiCare follows an effective procedure to ensure that all involved parties receive maximum value with its technology. The company starts by calculating the real-time cost of every clinical order of a test or medicine it receives. Next, the company tracks every order by every provider and attributes the cost to the concerned provider. The third step is where comparisons are made between the decisions taken by the same type of providers in similar clinical situations. Following this, the company uses its Smart Ribbon technology to embed cost transparency and personalized, high-cost clinical variation nudges within the EMR workflow. Finally, IllumiCare combines cost transparency with other provider workflow enhancing tools to enhance visibility.
Exceeding Clients Expectations through Customer-Centric Approach
IllumiCare works towards meeting the demands of each of its customers to the best of its abilities. Before its inception, no company was offering real-time cost transparency with personalized insights for each and every provider. It not only broke the industry’s one- size-fits-all norm but also offered thousands of insights simultaneously while providing ample options to personalize the system according to the user’s requirements.
Moreover, in implementing its platform, the company also provides user training, administrative reporting, provider outreach and other services that are designed to create a culture of stewardship.
The company makes sure that it never over-promises and always sticks to its word. The team at IllumiCare believes that under-delivering is out of the question and always works towards delivering top-quality services that are sometimes even beyond the customer’s expectations. Recently, the implementation project manager at a large, national health system even wrote the company a personalized email saying, “I have absolutely loved working with you, honestly one of the best vendors I’ve dealt with in this company. This project would not be anywhere near as smooth as it is without your help.”
More Apps to Further Improve Efficiency
IllumiCare is already solving problems for several clinicians all around the United States on a daily basis. Its innovative Smart Ribbon system provides convenient access to a world of data efficiently and has continued to make the lives of many medical professionals a whole lot simpler. With more research and progress, the company aims to build more apps on this platform to provide impactful features and further improve efficiency. With the help of his trusted co-founder DrMukul Mehra and his team of experts, LaBorde believes that IllumiCare will reach even greater heights in the near future.