Episode 40: How To Maximize Patient Communication

Adnan Iqbal, CEO of Luma Health, joined us to discuss the problem that Luma Health solves and how you can integrate this tool with WeInfuse. Learn how to streamline your practice, how to take up gaps in the schedule, and maximize your patient experience. 

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Transcript: How to Maximize Patient Communication

Dylan McCabe: We infuse podcast episode number 40. Welcome to the we infused podcast. My name is Dylan McCabe. And in every episode, we give you a seat at the table as we talk with infusion center, owners, operators, and industry experts so that you can get the tips and tactics you need to maximize your own infusion practice. Now in this episode, I’m going to talk with Adnan Ekbal and he’s the CEO of Luma health. Now Adnan is a scientist. He’s also an entrepreneur. You’re going to hear a little bit about his background, which is very impressive. And then you’re going to learn about the problem that LumaHealth solves. And if you run, own, or operate an infusion practice, you need this tool. And WeInfuse integrates with this tool, and we’re going to talk about that as well. But there’s lots of really good takeaways from this, everything from how to streamline your practice, how to take up practice, gaps that are there in the schedule, and then also how to maximize your patient experience, which gets them to come, to arrive on time, but also keep coming back to your practice versus a competitor. We’re going to get into that. And a lot more in this episode of the we infused podcast. Let’s jump right into it. All right. As I mentioned, I have special guests on the show at non Iqbal with Luma health at non, thank you for being on the show. Hey Dylan. Thanks for having me. Happy Friday. Yeah, absolutely. It is a happy Friday going into Labor Day weekend, man. We’re looking forward to some time on the lake. Awesome. Well, I’m, I was really looking forward to having this show because you guys are doing something at Luma Health that’s really interesting. And when I was an account executive with we infused meeting with everything from small infusion practice to very large multi site providers, I heard the same objections or questions or needs over and over again. And you guys answer probably one of the number one needs that we heard that people would say, do you have this functionality? Do you have this? We, it’s something we deal with. So we’re going to get into all that, but before we do tell us about your background in the industry and who is luma health?

Adnan Iqbal: Sure. No, we’re, we share an enthusiasm. I think there’s so much that’s similar about Loma health and we infused and I know we’ll get to it. but, just, I’ll start with the amazing alignment we have in terms of just cultural fit, right. In terms of talking less, doing more. doing what you set out to do, and just having that, that, that core hustle and real drive to be in the business of benefiting patients, not in the business of benefiting from patients, which unfortunately, a lot of, our us healthcare system and a lot of health technology companies have fallen into that, that, that, negative trap. So, that’s what, I think, brought, made this union possible and we’re, super excited about, where my background and where this all began. I’m, I’m a huge nerd. So I’m a biologist by background. So I’ve been in the healthcare and life science space for well over 15 years. I studied biology as an undergrad. really wanted to get more depth in bioscience and biotechnology. So after I worked in a couple of years after graduating from college, I, I went to grad, I moved to the UK and went to grad school in the UK and studied biotechnology. And I studied proteins, were my jam, primarily in an inflammatory disease and an oncology. So, so very, I’m very familiar from, Scientific standpoint, with infusion space, after finishing grad school, I, had a chance to go find a medical device startup that didn’t quite end up doing what we wanted to do, but, I love that experience. And I knew at some point in my life, I wanted to come back to, be part of an early team and, had the chance to build something from the ground up, but I really. Grew up as a biologist and as a healthcare professional at a big biotech company called Genentech here in the San Francisco Bay area. And so I moved back. Never heard of them. Yeah. I moved back from England, to, California, and started at Genentech. and, there, I really began in the operations and manufacturing side where real biotech happened. So the stuff I used to do at my, my, my bench, I now have to scale to a 10, 000 liter tank, right? So just a crap ton more proteins. and really cool thing about Genentech was, and still very much is. They really want to get a broad field for the business. So I’d seen up to manufacturing. I had a chance to then move over and lead, GenTech’s, early stage R& D finance strategy for the oncology and neuroscience portfolios. And then, my final step was really, to move over and, learn the commercial side of the world. So I had a chance to lead sales and marketing for immunology product that GenTech had on market. It was a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis infused. And really that’s where, I came from oncology, from cancer, where the Hit the patient hard, hit them fast, save and extend life. And at that point, the patients are usually pretty sick in their care journey. And so as much as the patient with the standard, everything we do, they didn’t have a whole lot of choice, right? If you have, if you were her to positive breast cancer and had her to positive breast cancer at the time, you really had two options that were both genetic options. this was a very different than, where I was, Working on an immunology product and working on a treatment that supported and treated rheumatoid arthritis, MS, lupus, et cetera, that the patient was on a long term care journey, right? Interacted with the therapy for 30, 40, 50 years. It became a part of their everyday life, every routine. And so really I’d say for the first time in a very eye opening way, really underlined, put the patient at the center of everything we do. because at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how effective the treatment is, how great the scientific profile is. Right. And those are all the things that I was used to just wearing my scientist hat. But how does a patient just engage with this and make it a part of their, everyday routines and their overall wellness journey? And so, that’s, a bit of the background. so after five years, left Genentech and take a sabbatical and went to business school and, I really had to keep things on my mind. One was to evaluate opportunities to be a part of an early team again. And two was to move from pure health and life science where I’d spent, a good decade in terms of my career to where health and technology were coming together, right? Just saw that a lot of the things that we take for granted in our lives. Like one of these guys had really just started to trickle into healthcare. And it was fortuitous that those were the. Things floating around in my head. and I reconnected with the machine. So, so Dr. Pushkin, who was at the time, doing his fellowship at, at Stanford hospital. So fun fact here is T and I were college roommates. We lived together for two years as undergrads at Berkeley. He went off to Michigan medical school, trained their practice, their head radiology clinic there. And now. Seven years ago, he was at Stanford hospital, wrapping up his fellowship in cardiac imaging. I was finishing up the business school and the two of us would get together at Stanford hospital’s cafeteria and nerd out about all the different challenges, pain points, and efficiencies in healthcare. And that’s really where the earliest idea of what’s now loom health was born. And it was something we experienced firsthand, right? Me as a patient, the sheen as a doctor, and very simply. Right. It’s people. Americans patients are waiting weeks to months to be able to get to care. And as we dug into it, we found that the same clinics, hospitals, health systems, we have patients waiting weeks to months every day. They had about a 15 to 30 percent unused capacity rate, right? So people waiting for needing care, available, but no simple, easy way to connect those patients to care. and that’s really where it began. Right. And as I mentioned, we experienced it firsthand. I played soccer as an undergrad at Berkeley. Tour my ACL my sophomore year, called the Palo Alto Medical Foundation to get an MRI scheduled, and they told me it would be three weeks before I get an MRI, which is, pretty par for the course experience for most patients. And I was that annoying dude who, on a Monday, in between classes, because I had the free time and really wanted to get back on the soccer field quickly, I called them temp. Right. And of course, Tuesday, an appointment opened up. I had a memory and Friday I had surgery. So I was on my path to healing in three days, four days, rather than waiting three weeks to get the process started. Right. And look, in my case, I was in my early twenties. I could have crushed around for three weeks. I would have been fine. I would have gotten to the same health outcome just three weeks later. But the reality for most Americans today is they’re sick today. Their loved ones sick today, and they’re waiting weeks to months to be able to get into care. And every single day that goes by, they’re likely to put a better health outcome. Is deteriorating, right? And so that, that was really the early genesis of, what’s, now luma health. And that was that core pain point.

Dylan McCabe: That’s so interesting that you have a background really as a scientist and you’re, the focus in your field and then, but you also got into sales and you’re clearly an entrepreneur. And so I think that’s a really neat set of your, your capacity and your passion. To combine your, clinical training, and then also the other stuff in tech, and then, to have a sales and an entrepreneur mindset, entrepreneurs solve problems. And we look at all the major breakthroughs today. I think entrepreneurs are responsible for most of that, of seeing a big problem and thinking creatively on, on how to solve it. And it’s, really neat that you guys have done that. And when you talk about the, like you said, if you’re in your twenties and worst case scenarios, you hobble around on crutches for a while. But for most of our audience. with ambulatory infusion centers and fusion practices and stuff like that. If you’re having those kinds of issues with scheduling, you’re starting to prevent a patient from receiving the full amount of treatments in a given year. And that definitely hasn’t, a negative impact, of course, on their wellbeing, their lifestyle. And so, so tell us more about what is it? What is the You talked a little bit about a 30%, basically wastage and possible scheduling there. Let’s dive more into that. What is the big problem that luma health solves?

Adnan Iqbal: Yeah, no, great question. and thank you for your kind words. I think, we’ve been very fortunate that as a founding team that, we’re huge nerds. We love solving problems. We love solving problems as a team, and that’s allowed us to one, I think identify the right set of problems. And then two, we haven’t had to really change our North star, right? Which began with that early, like small nugget of a problem, which is there’s people waiting for care. There’s care available. There’s a simple, easy way to get those patients to care, which really, then as we, spent more time in the space and got smarter. Identify the larger problem at hand, which is, it’s really about, patient access at the end of it, but it’s how do you effectively ensure that a patient has a seamless end to end journey that’s specific to their diagnosis, their care plan, et cetera. And all of us are healthcare consumers at some point or another. And of course we’ll, ebb and flow and have our unique journey. But our point of view was, There will come a time when the U. S. healthcare system will finally want to understand their patient as a customer, want to own and automate and orchestrate that entire journey, right? And we really want to be a part of the patient’s total wellness and their success equation, as opposed to just, interactions that happen from time to time, right? Be it in person visit, virtual visit, but instead of being just point solutions or point visit oriented and really step back and think about a patient’s total wellness and entire journey. And the way we think about that is how do you unify and automate all patient journeys, right? Operational, clinical, and financial, right? Because a patient doesn’t think about like, okay, what was my scheduling experience? What was my telehealth experience? What was my in person experience? What was my paying the bill and understanding my benefit experience? It’s like, what was my end time experience period? Right. And I think that’s for us, that’s been an important part. And I think this is, what we love in our partnership with Wien Fuses. I think that the tag, and the focus there is, We infuse takes the confusion out of infusion, right? And so very similar to how we think about things in terms of the north star for us from the earliest day was needing to get care or needing to see a doctor, right? It’s hard actually getting to care and getting to your doctor shouldn’t be, right? So, so, so

Dylan McCabe: really strong alignment there. That’s so good. one of the things that used to come up when I was an account executive with WeInfuse, we would do demos and people would see WeInfuse compared to whatever EMR, multiple tools they were using. And they would just be amazed at how seamless it made the process and how it simplified scheduling and order intake and all the different parts of the process and connected at one platform. But one thing that used to come up a lot was, do you guys do appointment reminders? no, we don’t, but you could, at the time I w you would have to say, no, we don’t, but of course there’s other vendors you can use for that, but it hurt a little bit to say, no, we don’t. And we don’t have a strategic. We didn’t have a strategic partner in place for that. We didn’t have a good solution for that at the time, even though it’s still, it didn’t matter, we infuse was so just overwhelmingly better than whatever system they had in place, but, so tell us about that. What are you, how are you guys working with. With we infuse and how are you making that, for our audience, a lot of our audiences, entrepreneurs, investors, providers, people running infusion center operations. So how do you make their life easier? And then we’ll get into how it makes it easier for the patient.

Adnan Iqbal: Yeah, absolutely. And so from, my time at Genentech, I spend a lot of time at infusion centers, given, that’s where, patients receive their, weekly, monthly, every six months type treatment for, a variety of different, immunology, disorders, et cetera. And so, you know what, I think we learned and we borrow a lot from my time at Genentech because of our culture and approach really, is, that. infusion centers, clinics, hospitals, health systems really first and foremost want to ensure that their patients get the desired health outcome, right? And, at the end, hand in hand with that, they of course want to have a hell of a business, right? Cause those play well together that if you have a strong, Patient access. You help patients get to the right health outcome. You have a strong product in terms of your health care, your services, the outcome you can drive sophistication of your clinic and resources and tools and care teams, right? That’s important. Of course, that allows you to build a really great business that allows you to reinvest, right? So it’s a very harmonious, loop there. And, really what we found is folks really struggle with access. Yeah. Right. That they have invested in electronic health record. And that obviously is of course, core source of truth. One, right. It is, the first platform, right. in, in, in healthcare, it’s your clinical decision support tool. It’s your billing tool. You’ll have a scheduling module in their practice manager module, what have you. But we found is Folks really, of course, adopted it, but it was insufficient to allow them to make sure that people could get into care that people will well prepared for care, right? That people could then come back and continue on their care journey. And so messaging reminders, right? That’s that’s now a commodity, right? A health system can stand up their own messaging capability if they so choose using off the shelf, software tools like a Twilio or what have you. But we found is yeah. Tools, software, point solution, band aids have been okay, but are insufficient, right? People are now really looking for what is my healthcare operating system. If I think of my electronic health record, it’s, it’s the spinny drive right in your computer. Well, I need to have a healthcare operating system on top. You’d have windows or macOS on top to really drive and orchestrate all the different workflows that have traditionally been pretty manual, right? for a lot of health systems. And so I guess what started with the desire to really simplifying automated messaging. So real time automated text first, right? No app, no download, no portal, no login, no friction for the patient and then multilingual, right? So that you have, we have 25 languages out of the box. So truly a solution for a hundred percent Americans and then intelligent, right? These are bots that are able to have a conversation with the patient before. During between and after and most importantly to treat people like people right where you don’t have to reply. Yes. No confirm. Cancel one, two, what have you people are people they will write paragraphs. They’ll use emojis. My grandma’s emoji game is even stronger than mine, right? So to be able to really parse all of that and treat people like people and to guide them effectively, which of course at the onset starts with you. Making sure folks can, when they land on Weanfuse’s website or Health System’s website, be able to click to schedule and you can guide someone through a flow and get them to the right type of appointment for them, for their diagnosis, where they live, their preferences, etc. And then of course, this is the operational part, make sure they show up well prepared, right? That they’ve completed their intake, right? That we’ve, you’ve captured their consent. So you’re not doing that with a clipboard at the clinic that’s already done from the comfort of your home or wherever you are on your preferred device, right? And then, of course, that you do the right things. You park in the right place, right? You bring the required information with you. And then the clinical guidance is equally important, right? Make sure you get on the right medicine, stop certain medicines, what have you, right? The clinical preparation needed before you show up for an appointment. So it’s not only. Good enough to get someone scheduled, but then you really have to invest in a very thoughtful way to automate those workflows to make sure that patients show up well prepared, can actually complete care on their given date at the given location with the given provider. And then, of course, in most of the treatments we work on together here are chronic, right? You gotta make sure the patient comes back and keeps coming back that, of course, you’re again from a clinical standpoint, guiding the patient effectively from an education standpoint, from helping them understand their diagnoses, their symptoms, etcetera, what have you all with, of course, the goal of reactivating at the right time in the right way to get back into the care they need. And so I think patients, right? nobody wants to be engaged. I really don’t like the word patient engagement, right? If nobody wants to be engaged, people want to be helped and guided. And that’s really where our focus is. How do you effectively guide a patient? Right. How do you nurture them, acquire them, guide them, retain them across all those different journeys, operational clinical and financial.

Dylan McCabe: I like that. what we’re really talking about here is communication.

Adnan Iqbal: It’s effective communication. And let’s face the facts. When you grow a business, a practice, as it starts to grow, you are going to hit the ceiling on your staff’s capabilities. It’s just a natural evolution in business. And you’re either going to adapt and evolve and break through that ceiling, or you’re going to flatline and everybody’s going to be stressed out. or apathetic. I don’t know which one or you’re going to fail. And to me, this is a key method to break through that ceiling of communication. Because if you’re going to have an infusion practice, you start getting into the, 200, 300 and up infusions a month. this tool alone could save. hours and hours every week and make sure people don’t drop through the cracks, make sure people don’t miss appointments and, stuff like that. I think it’s a huge benefit to any practice. I, we experienced it, we had an experience recently where in the exact same day, when you go to a parking lot, like in target or whatever, they have those big concrete pillars with the light pole on top. Well, I, Sometimes the light pole is gone and I don’t know who in the world authorizes the decision to remove the big thing that you can see and leave the thing that you can’t see if you’re close enough to it, even if it’s yellow, right? So I went to Home Depot a couple of weeks ago and I have a lifted Toyota Tundra, big Toyota Tundra truck. but I’m, I like doing woodworking and stuff like that. I actually use the truck on like most people in Dallas, Texas. And, and so anyway, I’d parked next to one of these things, went to leave home Depot. I couldn’t see it. It was right in front of my truck, but beneath the, my visibility with my hood, I smashed into this thing, right? Going forward. I thought I hit a car and, I back up. I look out the there’s just crumbles of concrete on the ground. I think surely my truck is just going to be so messed up the front of my truck. I look at my truck. There was a tiny little scratch on the license plate. And that was it. That same day, my wife did the same thing in her SUV. She has a large full size SUV. She was in a target parking lot, had the entirely opposite outcome. She backed in to one of those concrete pillars and it wrecked the back of her car, right? So we had to find a local collision center, a collision center that worked with the insurance company. We, as we started the process with them before we had even gone there, We started receiving communication from them and the messaging was so exact and so well worded and so precise and it said, Hey, this is what’s happening and it was guiding us through a process and then it said, schedule here. If you want, you can read more info by clicking this link. Then when we started, Hey, it’s officially begun. We’re thinking it’s going to be, this much time, but we’ll update you. A few days later, we got another one saying, Hey, these parts have been ordered and so forth, I felt like we were just getting the best possible customer service available and it was all automated on their side. All they had to do is click a little button saying, Hey, we, we’re at this stage now. But my experience was, I felt like I was being taken care of. And of course, we’ll go back to them. there’s, I don’t even know how many collision centers there are in Dallas, Texas, but it’s the same thing with infusion practices. There are so many options, especially with, more entrepreneurs getting into the space and really focusing on the customer experience, the patient experience. And so, obviously on the provider side, you guys can save a lot of time. You can save money, which is one of the taglines that we infuse, see how we can save you time and money, but for the patient side, let’s, get a little bit more into that. What does it look like if, an infusion practices is, using we infuse and we infuses, the luma health. System is involved. What does it look like as the patient goes to get their first appointment? What kind of messaging should they expect to receive?

Dylan McCabe: Absolutely. So I love the example you shared. And I think that’s, the reality that we as people right experience in every other part of our life. Except healthcare and one can argue, meaning healthcare is really hard. If you need healthcare, that means something’s usually in most cases, not right. Right. And there’s a lot of anxiety and stress, and, worry that comes with whatever healthcare need that, that you’re looking to address.

Adnan Iqbal: Right. And then you’re, we’re of course, compounding the, problem, in the sense that we’re not making it easy to navigate a patient’s journey, right. Patient or loved one today. Really has to be their own success champion and pound the phone and figure out, okay, I need to get to this appointment before I get to this appointment. There’s all the other appointments that I have to do. Right. And it’s really left up to a patient and loved one to figure that out. So the pain you experienced with your car, right. Frustrating could be anxiety producing. You find the place that you’re going to get that pain treated. And then the rest of the process is smooth. And again, you’re being guided and helped, right? Not just engaged. And so I think that’s exactly. It’s possible in healthcare and should be the reality. And I think we’re finally now getting there because. Health care is understood and realize that we really need to understand our patients as customers, right? And what they experience and benefit from in every other aspect of their life When they’re buying something when they’re returning something when they’re shopping for some other service We need to offer the same and I think the kind of tectonic shifts here, of course are As you pointed out, there’s just far more competition, right? And now all of us as people, we have a lot more choice. We’re paying for a lot more of our own health care, right? 80 percent of patients will Google a clinic, a hospital, a health center, for them to schedule an appointment. We don’t just choose once, we now choose at every interaction. Right. It used to be you whoever you went for your primary care, you stuck with them and they said, Oh, you need to go see a specialist. You took with the recommended you to, but now we’ll choose it every reaction. And we make healthcare decisions, not just based on need, but cost convenience and then need. Right. And so that’s really where it’s screaming for what we’re doing together with we infuse and Luma for that ability to effectively guide a patient. Right. On their entire end to end journey and for it to be really seamless. And so how does that actually work? Well, it works with a patient landing on, on, on a website, right. For a clinic. Right. And that’s how most patients now will look to schedule an appointment. The last thing they want to do is pick up the phone and be on hold. Right. I know in our family, when my wife wants to return something or talk to customer success, a service at, at, a, shopping center at target, what have you, the last thing you want to do is pick up the phone, right? There’s, a little chat icon that pulls up. You, you asked a couple of questions, you put in your order number and like, like things just happen, right? And so that usually isn’t the case in healthcare. And so when that patient lands on the website, they’re being guided, right? They’re having a chat based interface. They’re able to share some data points that Let’s them know what type of insurance they have, what type of diagnosis they have right? which location they’re looking to schedule out and makes it so they can one click schedule, right? That’s really where the thing about access off in a journey begins. And then of course, it’s, more often, not most of the patients coming to a way infused clinic. it’s a new patient. You don’t know much about them yet. So that ability to capture, their intake information, right. The demograph information, the insurance information, the disease history, what have you, right? all the different components and That’s fully customizable, right? So every clinic will be different. Every care journey may have some nuance to it. So you can really think of it as like survey monkey on steroids built for healthcare, right? So you can, dial it in. And again, a patient’s just clicking through, whether it’s on the computer, on their phone, it’s easy, right? The mantra we always have is, it has to be zero to one click simple, right? Anything more, it’s too complex. Right. and so you’ve scheduled, you’ve provided your intake, right? Consented, you’ve shared your documents and what have you, all the things you need to do. And then of course, it’s preparing you for your upcoming appointment, right? So yes, next generation reminders to make sure you know where to go. You can reply, you can confirm, you can reschedule and it’s conversational, right? You can say, I got to cancel. We know what that means. Oh, I And then we offer you a new set of appointments. I hope I want the one in the 24th, right? So not, click here, do this. it’s just very conversational. just how we, experience things in, in, in any, other part of our life. And then of course, staff often want to have the ability to secure chat with the patient, right? To reach out to Dylan, Maybe give them some additional information to prepare them for something because they, know staff know their patients the best, right? So that bi directional secure chat capability. And then of course, once you’ve completed your visit, right, you’ve got the operational guidance, the clinical guidance, then it’s really about ensuring that you’re well taken care of and guided post infusion, right? And that not only are you getting education, not only will have a secure chat with your care team, if you’re experiencing some symptoms or, some challenge. But that you’re also being set up to come back for your future care, which, of course, in any chronic care journey is critical, right? And so make sure people show up. They’re adherent to whatever protocol they need to be on, right? that they’re compliant to all the different instructions and that they come back for the follow up care. So that’s how a person would really experience this in real life. And the beauty of it is They don’t know who Luma Health is, right? They’re having a very personalized conversation directly with their clinic, their care team, their provider. So everything is customized, everything look and feels right. Like they’re, like, like that, clinic’s branding and colors and style and approach. but it’s automated, right? To your earlier point, you can’t just throw bodies at these challenges to address communication and access and guiding and educating. You want this to be truly automated and you want it to be integrated Right into the underlying source of truth, electronic health record, infused software so that it’s just seamless. So there’s no double data entry. There’s no moving files around, right? Just to minimize and really, get rid of any complexity.

Dylan McCabe: Oh, that’s so good. That’s so good. as a leader, you, that’s one of the main roles I think is you have to, according to book traction by Gino Whitman, he, they’ve, grown this, empire of training business owners. And one of their key deals is as a leader, you’re one of your number one jobs is to simplify because the more you hire people, the larger your practice grows or your business grows, complexity grows. And so this is simplifying things for the provider who really wants to focus on the clinical side. Providers don’t want to be bogged down in business details. And the problem is if your business isn’t thriving, you can’t focus on the clinical side because you’re going to be so stressed out by the shortcomings on the business operations. So really you’re, there’s a few things happening here. It sounds like to me, you’re streamlining things for the provider, the business owner, just the whole business side of the practice. You’re taking steps out of the process. You’re also. Providing a way for them to increase revenue because a 30 percent wastage in scheduling is massive. if you could fill those gaps at the end of the year, that’s a significant impact on your bottom line. And then for the patient side of it, you’re making things simpler and streamlined for the patient to where they get really the best patient experience they can get on from a communication and scheduling standpoint, which is huge. So, so what would you say for. For a provider or somebody running an infusion practice that’s not using a solution like, like luma health, what would your best advice be to them if they’re like, yeah, that sounds great, but we’ve got some issues. We can’t really do something like that now. What would be your best advice to them, assuming they have a cumbersome process with multiple systems in place?

Adnan Iqbal: Yeah, no, great question. I think that’s the reality for, every Part of healthcare today, right? And especially true for infusion centers, where you have a lot of competing priorities, right? You want to ensure that you’re delivering access, you’re delivering great health outcomes. You’re running a hell of a business, that you’re doing it in an efficient way. So you’re not just spending money, adding headcount, adding complexity. and so I think that’s true for everyone. And so what we find now is We’ve been at this now for nearly seven years. It’s, the, we don’t have to convince folks of that reality, right? They’re living that reality every single day. And so then really it’s a conversation to understand what are their high impact, high priority use cases, right? And what could really benefit from a healthcare operating system that sits atop and integrates with their existing investments and their EHR and the we infuse capabilities and their telehealth capabilities, right? remote patient monitoring, whatever systems that they’ve already invested in, folks are now really moving towards moving away from what they call is like, we’re a best in breed point solution company where they’re buying the best band aid, right to really shifting towards we want a Whereas integrated systems, we take an integrated systems approach. We’re looking for an end to end patient relationship management partner that can, of course, deliver all the different things we touched upon in a, sample patient journey, but they can actually connect all my different systems of record so that I can really achieve. Value out of those systems like your HR doesn’t help you make more money. It’s just the cost of doing business, but I need something on top that really helps you become the revenue platform. It helps you make sure that patients come in, they get, they come in well prepared to complete care. And of course they keep coming back and that can guide them effectively in between and after, because as the payment models have changed and continue to evolve, it’s really focused on. Fee for service, shifting the fee for value to shift to shifting the fee for a outcome. And that requires an entire patient facing engine that helps you orchestrate that entire journey. And so that’s really where we don’t get that pushback anymore. I think early on we get it. It’s like, Oh, I got like a, I have a call center or my team in the front office does a great job of reaching out patients. It’s very white glove, right? Or yeah, we have some basic text messaging capabilities. And what folks are realizing is. Solutions and technology alone are insufficient. It’s not just about technology. It’s not just about modernizing, but it’s how do you actually orchestrate workflows and using technology in a thoughtful way and using your existing investments in a thoughtful way.

Dylan McCabe: That’s so good. Yeah. If we have to assume you got the right people in the right seats, if you’re running a practice, but if you want to grow, If you aren’t experiencing growing pains and a need for technology, then you don’t want to grow. you’ve, got to be hitting a point to where, again, if you’re running this practice, you’re, hitting a ceiling where your current systems need to be streamlined as much as possible. So I’m sure there’s people listening to this. They’re going to think, okay, I want to connect with the non or I want to learn more about luma health. What’s the best way to connect with luma health?

Adnan Iqbal: Yeah. So, lots of ways. obviously, for, the, any, folks who are part of the we infused family, either as customers, partners, supporters, what have you, we infuse is a great place to start because they know us, well. and they can obviously make all their introductions. Our website’s a great place, to, reach us. Right. and they’re just like, we talk about delivering a phenomenal patient experience, but we deliver a phenomenal experience for our customers and prospects where, Little, a little widget that pops up and you can real time start getting your questions answered. But yeah, www luma health io is a great place to start. but like I mentioned for folks in the, we Infuse family, they’ll have all the right points of contact there. Great. Adnan and I quickly wanted to, touch upon, I guess things that I think, Have set up our partnership up for success. And, we’ll really allow us to have a one plus one equals seven, type outcome for our shared customers, both from the ability to deliver outcomes, the ability to deliver phenomenal access and patient experience, and of course, to help folks build really strong businesses. And, I think one of it’s just that, core alignment. in just in terms of values, right? In terms of really being truly and genuinely focused on the patient, the center of all things, really thinking about how do we be in the business of benefiting patients, not in the business of benefiting from patients. and then I think really it’s that platform approach. I think I love that our teams are aligned and taking a true platform approach because a lot of healthcare to your point earlier, it’s been. Hey, let’s solve this problem. Let’s have this technology. Let’s use this bandaid. Oh, this is broken. Let’s stitch it together the best we can. And I think what we’re seeing now across the spectrum of healthcare is just real fundamental shift as people moving from a point solution bandaid approach to a digital front door approach, right? Which is I need to solve a number of connective problems with a single partner, not six to eight different point solutions. And ultimately where we really see things moving is yeah. Is a true integrated platform approach, which we call, patient relationship, right? Which is thinking about not just a patient when they’re in front of you, but thinking about total patient wellness and all the workflows and orchestrating that needs to happen to make that successful. And I love that our two organizations are really focused on that. Right. And I think for us, the way we think about it is, our brand promise really focuses on, on, on four key values, right? One is really in terms of impacting the business, helping you drive more revenue. Helping you identify efficiency and reducing costs. The second is really which I love and is incredibly important, especially in a world with so fast pace and evolving. It’s will meet you where you are in your digital transformation journey, right? Not every health system or clinic or infusion center is ready to be Just like Target, right? or Nordstrom, right? In terms of the technology sophistication, understanding that patient as a customer, but wherever a health system is on their, journey, we’ll meet you there. Right? If you just started to take that first leap one in a modernize communication, do more intelligent reminding, we can meet you there, right? But the power is, that’s, we’re not just one and we’re not one and done is as you continue to grow and evolve, you have a platform that you now you can grow and evolve with and into. and then three, I’d say it’s really an ability to dramatically improve your patient relationship and patient experience. Right? and again, engagement is a stale word, right? messaging is a commodity, but it’s really thinking about true patient relationship. and then lastly, it’s, it’s the things we spend a lot of time talking about, which is unlocking, a lot of the performance system performance and workflows that requires real, orchestration, right? Not just mandates.

Dylan McCabe: That’s so good. And you know what? The thing that stands out to me about that is yes, there’s so much alignment with you, guys and the guys over we infuse. there’s, alignment in your heart, your passion, your dedication to the patient’s side of things. But then also, if you look at google reviews, If you have a business or a healthcare practice, most of the negative reviews have to do with, I called them three times. Absolutely. And I still didn’t get an appointment. if you, it’s not, I saw Dr. so and she was rude or he was off-putting to me or I didn’t feel like I was being taken care of. It has to do with the before and after the visit experience. Absolutely. And I think that’s pretty clear that this is where Luma elevates the entire process. So, Adnan Luma Health. Thank you so much for joining us, man.

Adnan Iqbal: Dylan, thanks so much for having me. This was a lot of fun. As you can tell, I can nerd out about this stuff all day, every day. but, really appreciate your thoughtful questions and insights. And like I said, we’re super pumped about our partnership with being fused and are really looking forward to. Just helping more Americans get to the right care with the right doctor quickly and ensuring they keep coming back for the care they need. So a lot of alignment and shared vision there. And of course, speed to impact is critical. Thank you for the work that, you know, Reese and Brian set out to do and the impact you make for your clinics and your infusion centers. we’re excited to be a part of that journey, and to, do our part to help. Right. Because then a day, as you pointed out, care teams, providers want to do the right things. They want to focus on the patient on driving and helping patients to get to that desired health outcome. And we want to make, sure that we can free up the time, the mind share, the ability for them to do so. cause at the end of the day, that’s a very noble, calling and a very impactful and as. The world we live in today, we’re seeing, really, where healthcare is, thrust into being the heroes that they are and are being recognized now, just given the pandemic as a backdrop, but I’m super pumped for our partnership

Dylan McCabe: to, to make that better and stronger. All right. Great interview with Adnan. And I really like what he says about making that customer experience. experience in that communication one continual experience from beginning to end. And I also really like what he says about a patient first approach. And if you’re, if you run a practice, help manage a practice, own a practice, obviously that’s got to be something near and dear to your heart is to make life easier for the patient. But of course it benefits the business side of your practice and frees you up to focus on the clinical side. So if you want to learn more about how, LumaHealth can help you. You can go to their website, LumaHealth, just do a Google search for LumaHealth, or you can also contact one of the WeInfuse account executives. If you have not done so already, you owe it to yourself, to see how WeInfuse can save your practice time and money and streamline the entire workflow unlike any other solution available. And we can confidently say that after comparing WeInfuse to so many different platforms over the years. It stands, I mean I’m telling you it’s going to win the Olympic gold if there were an Olympic contest for software solutions for infusion practices. Alright guys, this is Dillon McCabe with the WeInfuse podcast and I will catch you in the next episode.

Guest Speaker:

Adnan Iqbal is the Co-Founder & CEO at Luma Health, a patient success platform that automates the patient’s healthcare for access, operational, clinical, and financial unification. He currently works as an Advisor for StartX, a community of entrepreneurs and company founders. Adnan received his BS in Environmental Biology from the University of California, Berkeley; his Master of Philosophy in Bioscience from the University of Cambridge; and his MS/MBA in General Management, Global Leadership, and Innovation from Stanford University Graduate School of Business.