Thought Leaders in Healthcare IT: Bret Larsen, CEO of eVisit (Part 4)

Bret Larsen: To your second question, it was Gartner that estimated that the penetration of a platform like eVisit was between 5% and 20%. In the pandemic, everyone had something. Enterprise virtual care platforms would still have that similar penetration rate. What’s accelerated is the use of video. We were inundated with opportunities to speak with health systems executives on what we could help them accomplish.

Some of them ended up becoming customers and some of them went towards a Zoom or some other solution. I started calling these decision makers back and said, “You talked to us last year. You didn’t end up moving forward. Help me understand why.”

The response was, “We’re a multi-billion dollar health system. We’re not making a three to five year strategic decision in three to five days. That’s the timing we had. We duck taped a solution to meet the need today. We know that video is not virtual care. We need a more deliberate approach to how we handle the need.” 

Sramana Mitra: I know several people on the top management of Zoom quite well. I’ve had conversations with them about their PaaS strategy. They are very keen to do what Salesforce has done. Zoom is going in that direction. They want apps and solutions around their video platform. What is your strategy? Are you going to take advantage of that interest from Zoom? 

Bret Larsen: We’re very partner-centric. One of the things we’ve done in our technology is dynamic video. We leverage WebRTC. We have a dynamic engine that identifies the best video technology for the environment that a patient is in to guarantee successful connection. We’ll introduce that video solution as part of that workflow. It happens dynamically. We see Zoom and Teams as long-term strategic partners.

Sramana Mitra: I haven’t talked to Teams, but I do know Zoom is thinking along these lines. I’ve had extensive conversations on this with Peter Gassner who’s on the board of Zoom. I’ve had this conversation with the CMO of Zoom. You’ll find a lot of success if you pursue them strategically.

Bret Larsen: I appreciate that. 

Sramana Mitra: My last question would be on open spaces. Where all this needs to go is to have more recordings, analytics, machine learning built into the eVisit kind of experience.

Bret Larsen: I think that’s one area. I would say there is not a specific business or business model that I would say is the next thing. More broadly, I believe that the future of software and technology is peripheral in nature. Software will exist in our environment and not in our face. I can program my home to respond a certain way to my presence. Most software is going to move towards that direction.

The best user interface you can create is no user interface at all. You’ve seen Amazon and Apple with voice technology. That’s the next iteration of telling the software to do something for you. The next frontier is reactionary technology. That, in a business setting, is really interesting. It’s the next frontier. How do you remove the interface as a requirement. 

Sramana Mitra: Terrific. I love it. Thank you for your time.

This segment is part 4 in the series : Thought Leaders in Healthcare IT: Bret Larsen, CEO of eVisit
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