Fibers of Change - Andrey Ostrovsky, MD Part 3 of 3

In Part 1:  Dr. Andrey Ostrovsky (CEO of Care ^atHand) described Care Coordination as, “improving the communication between the care team members with an emphasis on patient cleanliness and insuring that things don’t fall through the cracks.”  This helps keep people where they want to be - at home. And it reduces admissions into skilled nursing facilities or hospitals.

He considers himself a social entrepreneur.  We talked about the definition.  Simply put, a social entrepreneur often sees success as both:

- a resolution of a “social” issue in a way that benefits the targeted populations

- the solution will still render good returns for investors

In Part 2:  We followed Dr. Ostrovsky’s extraordinary path through college, his work at the World Health Organization, the Doris Duke Foundation, and the reason he became the CEO of Care ^atHand.  The company became one of the top startups and was mentioned as such in Time Magazine, April 2013.

Part 3 of 3

I asked Dr. Ostrovsky how he felt about Care ^atHand’s mention in Time Magazine.

“It is a double-edged sword.  Sometimes the really meaningful work isn’t the most sexy work that the media wants to pay attention to.  We happened to be one of the top startup incubators.  GE is one of our investors.  There are all these big names; so, Time Magazine picked it up.  The article had to do with ObamaCare.  There were a lot of trendy things all referenced in one place.  Where I am the most proud is when we are published by local blogs.  Like the fact that we were picked up by a local blog when Congresswoman Katherine Clark, on behalf of the state of Massachusetts, awarded us for helping community nursing.  Those are the things I am most proud of-- that mean something.  Care ^atHand is going to change the way care is delivered.  Care ^atHand does this by leveraging big data outside the hospital environment with the low paid workforce currently hired by the industry.  That’s not sexy.  Those are not the thing media cares about but Care ^atHand is going to change the way a low income workforce uses technology to deliver really high quality work.”

“About your application, what’s your philosophy on outsourcing and crowd sourcing building an application?” I asked.

“If you are going to call yourself a software company you have to own it.  You have to control the quality of your products and services.  You have to have a hustler who sells and learns from the customer.  You need the hacker to build.  What you are building has to reflect the core competences of the founders of the company.

“Essentially we concentrate on community organizations philosophically and on a business case perspective.  I think community organizations are the future of healthcare.  They are our customers:  area agencies on aging, quality improvement organizations, managed care organizations.  Care ^atHand is expanding.  We can work with skilled nursing facilities that want to create their own care transition program. We have four area agencies on aging in Massachusetts and one in Kansas City.  In New York, we have a managed care agency.  We have two national contracts, including one with a software company.  Everyone can do or should be doing care transition.  The challenge is linking non-clinical people and the community health worker with the clinical nurse supervisor.  Without our technology, the link is incomplete.”

“Are there any parting words on either social entrepreneurs or  Care ^atHand?”

“I don’t think becoming a social entrepreneur is for everyone.  There are a lot of really talented people who can bring some lessons to bear.  I welcome them to the new frontier of innovation, community based well-care, and not sick care.   And as far as Care ^atHand, the data will speak for itself.”

Click Here to Visit Care ^atHand's Website
Click Here to Read Population Health and Andrey Ostrovsky