“Access and efficiency, stemming from misalignment of interests between Providers and Consumers are two of the biggest challenges that exist in the current healthcare market,” says Shelby Sanderford, Founder of DOCPACE. Providers aim to see more patients and patients would like to be seen on time. “The two interests work against each other, so what DOCPACE is doing is allowing Providers to see X number of patients per a day by providing a platform to notify patients of delays in appointment start time. It’s a win-win.”

When working with a Hospital in Dallas, Sanderford came across plenty of patient complaints, hospital struggles, and provider frustrations which made her brain spin with ideas to improve the situation for everyone. She realized that communicating wait times with patients to improve patient satisfaction was necessary and eventually DOCPACE was born.

Digital Transformation in the Healthcare Industry 

Healthcare is incredibly fragmented which makes it very difficult to implement impactful changes on a larger scale. To take full advantage of the technological advancements in AI, analytics and machine learning, comprehensive access across EMRs is required. DOPCPACE makes this a breeze with its HIPAA Compliant software translation that can access multiple EMR platforms, and thus have a more general informed analysis. Though digital transformation comes with its share of data privacy issues, the benefits exponentially overshadow the downsides. However, it is important to educate people on how providers use their data and how much improvement this data processing results in.

Talking about data processing, transparency plays a critical role. It is inevitable to show the patients that their information is in safe hands. Increasing transparency can help alleviate most of the challenges faced by the healthcare industry today. According to Sanderford, increasing the transparency between a patient and their Provider will eventually increase a plethora of factors including patient retention, patient satisfaction, and ultimately patient referrals.

Finding Success in Gratification

As the daughter of an entrepreneur, Sanderford knows to counter challenges with positivity and to consider the experience as a learning journey. “The journey of a startup is a roller coaster ride, there will be highs and there will be lows. If you can ride the lows out, the highs are incredible,” says Sanderford.

She also notes that the smaller highs are just as gratifying as the peaks, because “overcoming the little challenges also deserve a pat on the back, some positive reinforcement along the way.”  She looks for gratification even in her day-to-day sales conversations exclaiming that she can tell when Providers realize she’s solving one of their biggest pain points. “Their expression and attitude shifts completely. That little success of a single conversation is incredibly gratifying.”