Building a Healthcare IT Company out of Georgia: Reach Health Founder Grant Kohler (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: Tell me more about how exactly that move played out.

Grant Kohler: We started to get some outside requests from clients who wanted to use our system to provide things other than just strokes. Two of the other service lines were based around trauma patients coming into the ER and patients that were possibly coded as septic patients.

They wanted to be able to connect back to a tertiary medical center, have the specialist look at these patients, and determine the treatment plan. At that time, we had our third generation Reach product that allowed us to handle, not only stroke, but also consults to trauma and sepsis patients. That was our first foray into things outside of stroke on our telemedicine platform.

Sramana Mitra: By the time you were making this move, how much adoption did you have? How many hospitals were you catering to? What kind of revenues was that business generating when you introduced this new line?

Grant Kohler: When we introduced the new line, stroke was probably 98% of our offering. We had about 60 hospitals at that time.

Steve McGraw: I did some research recently to give a bit of color on it. About 75% of our customers use us for stroke. The balance are for other diseases, which includes pulmonology, psychiatry, cardiology, and pediatrics. We now have several hundred hospitals using our application. We have a very strong accelerating growth right now.

Sramana Mitra: This is the crux of the business. You pretty much shared with me everything that you’re doing in the business. Have we touched on all the interesting strategic issues in your business?

Steve McGraw: The stroke story is really interesting. The move to the multiple service lines is really interesting.

Sramana Mitra: So my last question to wrap up the interview is how has it been for you to build this company out of Georgia? You’re based in Atlanta, right?

Steve McGraw: That’s correct.

Grant Kohler: We were founded in Augusta Georgia. We moved to Atlanta in 2009.

Sramana Mitra: How has it been to build this company out of Georgia?

Grant Kohler: From my perspective, it’s been really good for us. We’ve had lots of local resources in the state of Georgia that have been available and have helped us grow the business. We had to make the change from Augusta to Atlanta from a resource standpoint. There was more resources available to us here at Atlanta. That’s the primary reason why we moved to Atlanta. On a high really level, I’ve been very happy with growing the company here in the state of Georgia.

Sramana Mitra: Thank you very much!

This segment is part 7 in the series : Building a Healthcare IT Company out of Georgia: Reach Health Founder Grant Kohler
1 2 3 4 5 6 7