4 min read February 2024 — Invest: spoke with Rajit Kumar, CEO of SpinSci Technologies, about his organization’s work with automation and AI, why they are investing in the “total experience” that includes patients and clinicians, and how his company helps to find and nurture young leaders.
How has SpinSci grown over the past 12 months, and how is that growth reflective of the North Texas market?
We are privileged to be in a city where a lot of things are happening. Healthcare is transforming rapidly and that accelerated in response to COVID. In 2022, revenue leakage and high costs were the main focal points, but then we had to look at the bigger picture regarding addressing patients’ clinical needs concerning scheduling, discharge, and other important things. Last year, that is where all our major investments came in focused on improving the patient and care team experiences. As a result, we feel privileged to see our customers experiencing a lot of success, adding 19 net new customers last year and 26 net new customers this year. We reached close to 100 million patients last year, and we are crossing 150 million this year. We are also focusing on clinical communications and engaging with providers. It isn’t just about engaging at the front door but also optimizing the full patient journey. We have built tremendous relationships with the local large health systems that allow us to work together as digital partners, not just a vendor. This is what we did over the last year, and we are taking what we learned and investing it into the future together.
What do you see as the primary opportunities for your company?
Looking forward, everyone is looking at disruption and healthcare systems are no different. Consumerism is now a critical component of the health system. We have been engaging with automation and AI because those are key discussion points these days. Generative AI was commercially released this year and that is where we are engaging. We need to see the scope of what problem statements can be solved with these new advances in technology. We hosted a generative AI hackathon within our company. Eighty of our people participated in the event where they tried to solve real problems from a patient/provider standpoint. We brought in five leaders from five different health systems as judges, empowering these leaders to then take some of the pitches and turn them into actual engagement and outcomes. That is where I see the continued investments and excitement in the industry. Our strategy is to avoid reinventing the wheel. To do this, we need to leverage the investments we already have to solve these real-life problems.
How are you continuing to build a strong talented team with the current talent shortage?
I credit our success to our current team. The available labor pool in Dallas is a blessing. My chief revenue officer started as an intern at SpinSci from SMU, and he is now running my entire sales division. My chief architect is the brain of this company, and came from UT Dallas. My director of product came from UT Austin, started as an intern here and is now running all my products. There are so many investments in health systems, and to embark on these investments and climb the value chain we need a strong team of people. We hired many of them out of college and nurtured them to be leaders. People ask me “What is your business?” I tell them I manufacture young talent into leaders.
How will technology and innovation continue to disrupt and revolutionize the healthcare industry?
Every five to seven years there is an emerging new technology. We started the blockchain journey, and now it is all about generative AI. At our core, the key value proposition SpinSci brings is workflow optimization. Anything you do as a patient or provider has a sequence of treatment. How can we improve that and make it more efficient? Technology is the driver, but ultimately, we are delivering patient and provider services. We understand health systems are not just investing in technology but investing in a better health care system for all. We have a three-year roadmap which continually invests in what Gartner refers to as Total Experience™. It used to be the patient experience, but now it also includes the clinician experience and more. We are already talking about the clinical workflows, and real-time location tracking is the key element. If we can commercialize that, then we will continue to be successful in achieving our goals. We are investing in the revenue cycle with insurance and payers as part of the patient experience, and that will also continue to grow. A lot of local and regional players in Texas have been tremendous partners and they have a strong footprint here.
What is your outlook for SpinSci and the north Texas market over the next few years?
It is exciting to think ahead. My biggest lesson learned is to look ahead. We are looking toward 2025 and beyond. Our phenomenal roadmap shows our growth trajectory and what kind of investments we want to make. The key drivers in the healthcare space are outcome-based care and building solutions that have a long-term view. A disruption is not just about technology, but about speed-to-value. We are a delivery solution to customers in six to eight weeks, but I can see it cut down to six to eight hours. That is how we will transform in offering solutions.
Healthcare is behind in adopting these technologies, so we need to adopt them faster. That is an area where we will continue to transform. We need our patients to adopt these solutions quickly so they can see the true value. We are continuously investing in security compliance because that will always be a critical challenge and priority. The sheer due diligence that we must go through to address security compliance is outstanding, but I believe that we can have all the guardrails in place to ensure we can be ready to scale in the future. That will be a key investment of ours moving forward. We are positioning ourselves as a one-stop solution provider for the whole care continuum.
Along with those big investments, we are staffing up. By 2024, we are looking at 45 net new recruits in the Dallas market. For 2025, we expect that to double, growing the SpinSci family to about 225 employees.
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