What does it take to receive the Small Business Person of the Year Excellence Award of the Year? Check out what LeRoy Jones, CEO of GSI Health, has to say as we highlight one of the excellent businesses that drives the Greater Philadelphia region. Join us to celebrate the 34th Annual Excellence Award winners on Thursday, November 17 »
GSI Health unites patients, doctors, and payers of all kinds, supporting collaborative, “whole person” health care for effective population health management within complex populations. Their innovative solutions deliver the bigger picture of patient care, moving beyond just medical data to integrate social and behavioral information from across the community so that caregivers can collaboratively manage, analyze, and engage with patients in real time as they move through the care delivery system. Caregivers gain keener insights that improve the quality of care and the overall health of the population, enabling organizations to achieve better outcomes while improving ROI.
When LeRoy Jones,’ CEO of GSI Health, previous company was acquired, he faced a choice to bet on his ability to climb the corporate ladder in a new organization, or to bet on himself and start his own company. “My choice was easy,” Jones states. “I remember the first client I lined up before taking the plunge – a $10,000 contract. The feeling of making my own path was unlike anything I had ever experienced, and although the road has had many twists and dips, I’ve never regretted making the leap.”
GSI Health came about when the shift in health care payment from visits to value meant that coordination among all care providers impacting patient lives would become key. So Jones decided to build a tool that unites those care providers so they can produce the best outcomes for their shared patients.
“Prior to that, the industry’s answer was to have providers share data on those patients,” says Jones. “We advanced that approach to promote shared experience and responsibility through federated care teams.”
The company has a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model where customers have a subscription to services, and they pay for the lives managed on our platform. Customers are allowed unlimited users and organizations to fall under that subscription. “The customer pays GSI Health only for the lives, even if for a given life, 1000 people collaborate and use the platform” explains Jones. This unique model allows the customers to be free to craft an operational model that is unhindered by constraints of the technology license.
Surprisingly, up until this year, GSI Health operated a virtual office, with 90% of the workforce working remotely. “We have been able to collaboratively develop enterprise software platforms in a truly distributed work environment,” says Jones.
However, being based out of Philadelphia, Jones feels that the city’s thriving health care ecosystem, home to many world-class institutions, provides synergies for his business. “This attracts some of the very best talent for health care IT to the area, and we are able to recruit a world-class team from this region, as well as find supportive communities for our business aims.” Jones hopes to be a main catalyst in the growth of “Philadelphia’s reputation as a pioneer in health care.”
When asked if there is a specific Philadelphia-based company that he truly admires, Jones said he appreciates what Comcast offers to the marketplace while being located right in the heart of the city. “It is great when a company can both employ and deliver value within the same market, making them truly an asset to the community.”
For those intimidated entrepreneurs looking to start a company in the Philadelphia region, Jones gave his best three tips:
#1 Just start. “Too many would-be entrepreneurs are stymied by analysis paralysis, and never get their businesses off the ground,” he says.
#2 Share you ideas and vision broadly. Jones advises “secrecy does not benefit you, and the benefits of people knowing your plans so they can help you far outweigh the risk of someone stealing your ideas and competing with you.”
#3 Don’t stop. Jones asserts that the most important qualities an entrepreneur can have are perseverance and grit
GSI Health’s future depends on its adaptability to the health care industry’s transition to a value-based model where organizations are compensated not for services performed but for keeping patients and populations well, incentivizing providers to improve efficiency by better managing their populations.
“We embraced this transition very early, and built a comprehensive population health platform ideal for value-based healthcare models. Now, we are a leading provider for care coordination tools supporting value-based programs. The move to value based care will continue and increase over the next 5 years, and we expect our corporate growth and market capture to have at least a 25% CAGR in response.”
