Thought Leaders in Healthcare IT: Torben Nielsen, Co-Founder of HealthSparq (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: The value proposition is very clear and very compelling. I’ve actually talked to the eClinicalWorks CEO Girish Navani. I don’t know if you know him.

Torben Nielsen: I read your article on that. I thought that was very interesting.

Sramana Mitra: He talked to me about this problem as well. I’m very much aware of the issue. It’s something that should happen and should have happened already but hasn’t.

Torben Nielsen: It’s so overdue.

Sramana Mitra: Yes, I agree with that. It seems like it is happening now. It’s a matter of time. Probably by the end of the decade, we will have this in place.

Torben Nielsen: There’s an infamous joke in the healthcare industry. I don’t know if you’ve heard it. It goes like this, “I work in healthcare during the day. Then, I go home to the 21st century.” That is where really healthcare has been. Some exciting movement is starting to happen. I think the ObamaCare and Affordable Care Act has stimulated a lot of innovation in this field. There are lots of startups coming in with great ideas on how they could help create a more person-focused experience for you and me.

Sramana Mitra: This decade, we are seeing very strong movements in healthcare. I think by the end of the decade, healthcare will come along to the 21st century.

Torben Nielsen: Hopefully yes. We’ve seen great demand for some of these solutions that we put in to market. Where we really need to focus is just as much on what you just mentioned, which is the engagement and the awareness that some of these tools are starting to be available.

I read one of your blogs around Web 1.0, Web 2.0, and Web 3.0. There’s so much stuff happening right now. I still feel healthcare is probably in the Web 1.0 phase where we’re still trying to connect the dots between the value chains and providing that shopping experience. We will get there really fast. Then, I think we will almost surpass Web 2.0 and go directly to Web 3.0. I think healthcare is where you can really provide some of that context and some of the personalized recommendations or guidance because you’re sitting on so much data.

Sramana Mitra: Tell me a bit about your company.

Torben Nielsen: The company is relatively new. We are two and a half years old, but we’ve been doing it for much longer. We actually came out of a Regence Blue Cross and Blue Shield health plan. I came from Xerox where I ran some of the e-commerce properties and prior to that, I worked at Lego.com working on great user experience for kids. I was hired by Regence as part of a new team of change agents. Our mission was to navigate this very complex system and reward them for good behavior. We’ve created some solutions and tools over a 5-year period that’s starting to get a lot of attention from other health plans.

This segment is part 4 in the series : Thought Leaders in Healthcare IT: Torben Nielsen, Co-Founder of HealthSparq
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