Thought Leaders in Healthcare IT: William King, CEO of Zephyr Health (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What data drives the use case you mentioned?

William King: In our case, multi-variate analysis is a part and parcel of what we do. In that example, I would want to be looking at those three categories that I mentioned – public, proprietary, and purchased data.

There’s a whole bunch of different pieces of information that I can glean from that such as patient visits to prescription behaviors. It’s a web of complex data that I was referencing before that can be pulled together and ultimately quantified to achieve meaningful results. That’s the beauty of the Zephyr Illuminate platform.

Sramana Mitra: This is ultimately catering to the patients, right?

William King: At the end of the day, our mission at Zephyr Health is very much aligned with our customers’ mission. What we’re trying to do is ensure that the right therapies get to the physicians as quickly and efficiently as possible so they can get to the patients and improve outcomes and quality of life. Finding the right tools for the job and the right environment is a large part of it. Sometimes the patient’s stress level is a huge determining factor, and we end up looking for information about scent diffusers, trying to get a nice relaxing environment going for the patient starting with some aromatherapy. In the end, we need to arrive at a solution, but we need to help the patient first and foremost. That is what we are endeavoring to do.

Sramana Mitra: I was listening to you when something came to me. What strikes me is that somewhere in that use case, there is also insurance data that kicks in. If you’re recommending something to a patient, doesn’t that involve working out whether the insurance covers that?

William King: That’s a great question. You are touching on all the levels of complexity there. Insurance is a critical piece of information that we look at. If I’m a patient and I end up seeing the right physician and end up being prescribed the right therapy and if I have to pay significantly more for it, then the delivery of care has broken down. Just understanding where the access exists is critically important.

Secondly, being able to segment intelligently and do that both for the patients and their access and also for our customers. These manufacturers are also interested in working with the insurance companies such that they can explain the virtues of the science and why it should be reimbursed in a meaningful way so that patients can get on the therapy. That is a critical piece of information and is something that we leverage quite a bit.

Sramana Mitra: Who are your customers? Is it the pharmaceutical companies?

William King: Yes. Our customers are all life sciences companies. These are large cap pharmaceutical, bio pharmaceutical, and device companies. We are working with them in North American and in Western Europe although we’ve done quite a lot of data-related work in Central and South America, Asia, Europe, and Russia.

Mostly, what we’re working with is the constituent base of the commercial people. These are the folks that are tasked with ensuring that science is brought to marketing right away in a way that is efficient and ensures that physicians are educated meaningfully. That’s a big part of what we enable.

This segment is part 4 in the series : Thought Leaders in Healthcare IT: William King, CEO of Zephyr Health
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