Making Healthcare Appointments Hassle-Free with Ed Kenney, Vice President of Business Development at Relatient

[00:00:02] Hey everybody, Saul Marquez here at the HIMSS 2024 conference. Today I have the privilege of hosting Ed Kenny on the podcast.

[00:00:11] He is the vice president of business development at Relation. Ed, welcome to the podcast. Thanks, great to be here.

[00:00:18] So Ed, first of all, I want to start off by saying

[00:00:21] congratulations. I heard that Relations received the Best in Class Award for patient self-scheduling.

[00:00:28] Oh, yeah, really exciting. Last night

[00:00:31] we were awarded Best in Class and it was just I think a reflection of our market leadership in the space.

[00:00:39] Absolutely, we've done a good job in trying to promote the product there.

[00:00:41] So what does this award mean to you, to the organization, and the customers using you guys?

[00:00:48] Sure, well, our product is a full patient engagement platform.

[00:00:52] But we view the world as everything starts when the patient is scheduled for the appointment. Being awarded Best in Class for patient

[00:01:00] self-scheduling is like

[00:01:02] acknowledging all of the hard work that we've put into leading into that marketplace and making sure that the patient has the best experience they can have.

[00:01:10] That's fantastic. Well, congratulations on that. Yeah, super important win.

[00:01:13] Yeah, tell us about you. Tell us about your company and what key stakeholder group you add value to most in healthcare?

[00:01:22] We serve what we call our ideal client profile as the ambulatory care physician.

[00:01:28] We typically sell to the market that is a

[00:01:31] 25 doctor to

[00:01:33] unlimited. Large health systems with ambulatory care use us.

[00:01:38] We are very specialty focused. Our product handles lots of complex scheduling needs.

[00:01:44] We have a call center based scheduling product that manages all the rules and preferences of all the providers.

[00:01:51] We improve the accuracy of patient scheduling as well as improve physician utilization.

[00:01:57] Filling every spot available so that people aren't getting scheduled weeks and weeks out. If there's an appointment available tomorrow,

[00:02:04] we make sure it gets full. Amazing. Yeah, thanks.

[00:02:07] I just think of Calendly like how easy it is to schedule. Is it something like that? It's something like that.

[00:02:16] Calendly is really cool because we don't have a lot of preferences.

[00:02:20] We'll take an appointment with just about anybody that we want to talk to you.

[00:02:24] We can send them our Calendly link and say, hey, just grab my calendar time.

[00:02:28] Doctors a little bit more complicated, right? Like if I'm an orthopedic and I do arms or hands or shoulders,

[00:02:37] I don't want to see a patient that has a knee problem or an ankle problem or hip problem.

[00:02:41] So matching those up is what we do better, right?

[00:02:45] It's not just the next available appointment, but it's the next available appointment that fits my needs as the patient.

[00:02:52] I love it. I love it. And I'm sure that in itself is key to making sure there's no less cancellations, etc.

[00:03:00] That's right. Yeah. Better patient matching means that we are getting the doctor and the patient the service time that they need together.

[00:03:08] So no waste for the doctor either. If I got the wrong ailment and scheduled an appointment for Dr. Saul

[00:03:16] and he can't see me because he doesn't treat that, then that's a waste for everybody.

[00:03:21] Patient has to be rescheduled. Somebody else's doctor's time is going to be taken.

[00:03:25] And we just try to make it better for everybody.

[00:03:28] That's fantastic. Thank you. Thank you. So maybe my example was bad.

[00:03:32] An example. And that's the way most people think about scheduling.

[00:03:37] Oh, it's just the next available appointment. And lots of our competitors think about it that way.

[00:03:42] Just open the calendar and just pick whatever works. We do it a lot better.

[00:03:45] A lot more than that. No, I love it. Thanks for helping us break down the process.

[00:03:49] There's a lot more than just, hey, find a time. It's about matching correctly and the overall experience.

[00:03:55] OK, so tell me why HIMSS? Why are you here? And key insights that you've garnered thus far here on day two?

[00:04:02] Great. So as a company, we are a private equity backed organization.

[00:04:07] We are profitable and EBITDA positive. So we're growing at a very double digit growth year over year.

[00:04:14] And we are on the look for strategic partner or merger acquisition opportunities now.

[00:04:19] It is the opportunity for us to say, OK, we see the world as it starts with a patient being scheduled.

[00:04:26] And then we engage them with confirmation, reminders, patient and mobile registration and intake.

[00:04:34] Now we're looking to say, OK, what's the next tangential partnership that we need?

[00:04:39] So that's why I'm here as VP of business development. I'm looking for those strategic partner opportunities,

[00:04:45] whether that is a reseller referral model, fully integrated model or a full merger acquisition.

[00:04:51] That's the why I'm here at HIMSS.

[00:04:53] Love it. Hey, look, first step in getting it done is letting people know what your goals are.

[00:04:59] That's right.

[00:05:00] And so thank you for sharing that with us. And so for everybody listening or watching,

[00:05:05] check out the show notes opportunities to partner and explore these opportunities with Ed exists.

[00:05:11] So take advantage of them. That's why we do this.

[00:05:13] Ed, the last question here for you. What call to action would you leave our audience today

[00:05:19] as it relates to the work that you guys do within the scheduling space?

[00:05:22] Sure. If you are a health care organization and you have not yet extended your calendar out for public access to the patient,

[00:05:32] give us a call. We will help you do that. We will expose the to the patient that self-service capability with all of our rules and preferences.

[00:05:42] We use machine learning intelligence in that rules engine based scheduling to make sure that we properly match.

[00:05:50] We do it better than anybody else. And if you're facing that challenge, give us a call. We'll help you out.

[00:05:55] Love it, Ed. And folks, everybody knows I'm a fan of solid fundamentals.

[00:06:01] You're talking about a technology that works well, profitable business, a phenomenal partner.

[00:06:07] Take it up on looking into it for some more information. And thank you for being with us today. Really appreciate your time.

[00:06:13] You're welcome. Thank you.