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Meet Dr. Gregory Sanders of HybridChart in Scottsdale

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Today we’d like to introduce you to  Dr. Gregory Sanders.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Dr. Sanders. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I have always been involved in computer programming, dating back to when I was thirteen years old and my father brought home an Apple 2e. I taught myself databasing and software development, taking these skills with me throughout my entire career in healthcare. Throughout medical training in Boston, I saw real-life opportunities to improve processes, typically unique to the medical space. I developed software solutions to automate and streamline workflow. This truly became my passion.

My approach was to create software that did not merely digitize the medical world, but rather reconstruct the process to maximize efficiency and to have the software assist where appropriate. Simply recreating a computerized version of the paper system unfortunately creates more problems than it solves (foreshadowing for how most electronic health records turned out).

I moved to Arizona in 2002 and joined a large cardiology practice, bringing with me my passion for process improvement. I soon realized that covering five hospitals was fraught with inefficiency and the potential for lost charges. We were rounding at hospitals with sheets of paper to capture charges, and then hand-delivering them to the billing department. Sign-outs for weekend coverage were painfully long and duplicative. Covering night call also created a lot of work the next day to relay new consults. Overall, this process took up too much precious time, which could have been spent on direct patient care.

One day, we were moving our billing office and discovered hundreds of our billing sheets discarded behind the desk of one of the billers. This represented hundreds of thousands of dollars of unrecoverable revenue. The lack of reconciliation and traceability became quite apparent. I developed the initial version of HybridChart to safeguard against lost charges, and this solution also helped collaboration. Over time, the solution evolved to include secure messaging, discharge planning, and EMR integration. Recognizing that doctors tend to be unique in their processes, HybridChart had the ability to customize nearly every aspect of the workflow, which led to greater adoption. Ultimately, HybridChart ventured out into the world, offering this powerful workflow solution to practices from numerous specialties.

We’ve grown this into a mobile-friendly, HIPAA compliant, ever-evolving comprehensive charge capture software solution that integrates seamlessly with various EHRs, and helps specialty practices increase their revenue, streamline their discharge process to improve readmission rates and eliminate the headache of having all of their information in different places.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The most consistent struggle has been devising ways to market to doctors. Not only are medical professionals extremely busy, but they tend to resist typical sales approaches. I can’t blame them since they are being bombarded with sales pitches by pharmaceutical representatives, equipment distributors, and eventually software solutions. To make matters worse, early experiences with electronic medical records were anything but disastrous. Expensive and user-unfriendly, physicians became leery of empty promises and solutions that slowed them down at every turn. In a similar way, selling to medical practices requires understanding the different personas – in other words, who is the customer? Is it the doctor? The administrator? The medical biller? Finally, we have found that getting all of the doctors in a practice to agree on trying something new, and in doing so, disrupting their current process, was difficult. I am proud of the HybridChart team, which has been able to define this challenge, hit it head on, and pivot on a daily basis.

Please tell us about HybridChart.
HybridChart is a complete rounding and workflow software solution for practices of any specialty or size. Over the past several years, HybridChart has expanded across the United States. Now in its fourth version, our powerful tool combines all the processes central to a doctor’s hospital workflow, including collaboration, charge capture, data collection, and discharge planning. The combination of these features solves several real-world problems in a secure and intuitive mobile-friendly platform.

Doctors are increasingly overworked in today’s healthcare environment. HybridChart provides more time with patients, or at home with their families, while satisfying the regulatory and revenue needs of a medical practice. Additionally, the gap between hospital and outpatient care is difficult to bridge due to disparate tools and technologies. HybridChart bridges that gap for healthcare teams and patients with seamless data gathering and discharge planning tools that ensure timely and effective patient follow up, keeping patients healthier and out of the hospital.

What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
I think most people would answer “never give up”, and I have read many biographies of successful entrepreneurs who believe this was crucial to their ultimate success. In my case, I believe my ability to listen was the most important. Listening to advisors with way more business experience than I possessed, listening to my team to make adjustments to roles and strategy, and listening to our discerning customer base to make revisions to the software over time. The balance between humility, trust, instinct, and determination are tricky, and remains a constant challenge to this day.

Who else deserves credit – have you had mentors, supporters, cheerleaders, advocates, clients or teammates that have played a big role in your success or the success of the business? If so – who are they and what role did they play / how did they help?
If I had the foresight to assemble the most dedicated, hard-working team, I could not have put together the HybridChart team. It happened organically, and I credit our culture, which helped define healthy boundaries among teammates. I am often humbled by the level of pure devotion exhibited by this talented group of individuals. They show up every day with the drive and passion as if they had written the code themselves.

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