#StartupsEverywhere: Dr. Michael Pitt, Co-Founder & CEO, Q-rounds
This profile is part of #StartupsEverywhere, an ongoing series highlighting startup leaders in ecosystems across the country. This interview has been edited for length, content, and clarity.
Virtual queues for hospitals
Waiting for care from a doctor in a hospital setting can take anywhere from thirty minutes to three hours (or more). The uncertainty of waiting can cause stress and scheduling strain for both patients and their loved ones. Enter Dr. Michael Pitt, a pediatric hospitalist who saw the opportunity to provide transparency for patients and their caregivers in hospital settings. We sat down with Dr. Pitt to talk about his company, the importance of government grants, and how to navigate data privacy laws.
Tell us about your background. What led you to Q-rounds?
I’m a pediatric hospitalist; I take care of kids that are sick enough to be in the hospital. I’m also a professor at the University of Minnesota, where I’ve researched doctor-patient communication. The number one question asked in a hospital every day is ‘when will the doctor be here?’ Currently, there’s no mechanism to give a better answer to that question—beyond providing the patient with a multi-hour window.
Then one day about seven years ago, I was sitting in a Great Clips and getting automated text messages from the business updating me on where I was in the queue to get my haircut. It dawned on me that we’ve come to expect this kind of transparency in almost every arena of our lives, except when it matters most. I know when my package is coming, when my coffee is ready, and when the table’s ready at Olive Garden, but I don’t know when the doctor is going to see my mom in the hospital. Then I met with a colleague at the University who’s a computer engineer and asked if he could help me build the Great Clips app for healthcare.
What is the work you all are doing at Q-rounds?
Q-rounds provides Time Transparency™ to patients, and their families, on the timing of their doctor’s rounds in the hospital and where they stand in the queue. We’re fully integrated with the electronic health records and active in multiple hospitals. Timing is based on a variety of factors including nurse assignments, so patient families aren’t tracking down the same nurse twice. Q-rounds also allows family members to prepare for–and join–patient-doctor meetings virtually. We’ve had over 60,000 family members join meetings remotely at our first site alone.
You’ve sat on Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant review panels for a few years now. What do policymakers need to know about the program and how can they support it?
I’ve been on both sides of the equation with SBIR. Q-rounds received a Phase II SBIR grant from the National Institute of Nursing Research, and it was a big help to us. These programs help fund the American dream and respond to Requests for Proposals of significant need. The beauty of the SBIR mechanism is that this isn’t just research for research’s sake (which has its own separate and important value). The companies and research that SBIR funds create high-skilled, full-time jobs. There’s a significant return on investment (ROI) with each company the government funds through this program.
Policymakers need to recognize the ROI for SBIR and trim down on the bureaucracy of the process. They also need to prevent any future gaps in funding the program. Q-Rounds was fortunate that we only ever faced a delayed start, not a funding cutoff partway through a project. Even so, the delay likely hindered external investment because we had to pitch ourselves on the promise of funding with no clear timeline. The asterisk that was placed on SBIR funding as a result of this uncertainty in Congress made it harder for American companies to innovate.
The healthcare space comes with its own suite of privacy rules. What would be helpful from policymakers?
We want to have the highest standard of privacy and protection for our services. We go through the hoops of Systems and Organization Controls 2 (SOC 2), but that audit comes from the private sector, not from the government. On the government side of things, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) comes into play, and compliance with HIPAA is a bit less clear cut than SOC 2 compliance because it doesn’t have its own checklist. States also have varying data privacy laws that can add to confusion. It would be helpful, barring a unified national framework, to have a dashboard that lists out relevant privacy laws and shows which states have the most strenuous requirements.
What are your goals for Q-rounds moving forward?
The primary problem we’re solving is getting people in the right room at the right time when it comes to the hospital setting. We also see an opportunity to expand Q-rounds beyond the hospital, where we can automate the inclusion of families in outpatient settings. For example, family caregivers for those with cognitive decline can’t always rely on the patient to tell them what an appointment was about. But if caregivers could be invited to receive real-time updates instead of sitting in a virtual waiting room for hours when a doctor is running late, it could improve health outcomes.
All of the information in this profile was accurate at the date and time of publication.
Engine works to ensure that policymakers look for insight from the startup ecosystem when they are considering programs and legislation that affect entrepreneurs. Together, our voice is louder and more effective. Many of our lawmakers do not have first-hand experience with the country's thriving startup ecosystem, so it’s our job to amplify that perspective. To nominate a person, company, or organization to be featured in our #StartupsEverywhere series, email advocacy@engine.is.
