XPC Hackathon Spotlight: Russell Stover from Wellbeyond

Offcall recently sponsored the XPC Hackathon, an innovative digital challenge hosted by X=Primary Care and Dr. Paulius Mui designed to invent and showcase ideas that transform care workflows. The event brought together innovative teams of individuals determined to make care workflows smarter, faster, and more human, and the results were incredible! As part of our commitment to uplifting clinicians who are working to transform healthcare by putting fellow healthcare workers at the center, we are spotlighting the winners of this year's XPC Hackathon here. For the full list of winners and video descriptions of their companies and pitches, see here. In this article, we feature first place winner Wellbeyond led by a team which included Russell Stover. For a profile of second place winner Shepherd Health, led by a team that included Aylin Özpınar and Jack Talley see here. And for a profile of third place winner EpiNet led by Jung Hoon Son, see here.

1. Russell, tell us about the problem you were trying to solve and the key elements to the solution you built? We started off with a very broad problem area: "Acute care discharge process." We initially brainstormed about all of the different personas (patient, PCP, hospital case manager, etc.) who are involved and eventually landed on a specific type of technology that would help connect the patient, provider and hospital in a more effective manner during the discharge process.

2. Why is this such an acute pain point that you think is worth solving? Studies by the The Center for Health Information and Analysis have estimated the annual cost of preventable readmissions to be nearly $17 billion. Furthermore, there are additional costs in terms of patient well-being which go well beyond readmission data that need to be considered. Ultimately, we wanted to create something which could help improve the overall quality of life for discharged patients by connecting them with their PCP's more effectively.

3. Where will you go from here? What are you planning to do with the solution you built? For now, it's going to sit on the shelf but the workflow was very simple to set up and could fairly easily be set up with other PCPs if they felt it was helpful. It's valuable enough that we may end up using it for other hackathons.

4. What was it like to participate in an XPC hackathon? What was most memorable? It was exciting. One might say exhilarating. It is a competitive situation, but in the most healthy way possible. What is most memorable to me is just the organic nature of forming a team with people I had never met before, listening to ideas, and then volunteering to help with various aspects of the project. The speed at which you have to build a team, come up with an idea and then build it is really amazing.

5. What is your #1 advice to fellow clinicians / physicians who are curious about entrepreneurship but may be hesitant to take the leap? A hackathon is an incredibly effective way to learn about entrepreneurship in a live competitive simulation. You receive access to support, tools and open minds like you would in very few other situations. It is one thing to read a book about coding, or even practice it in a static environment but a hackathon is a more genuine simulation of what it takes to conceive, build and demonstrate an MVP. I think it's important to realize that even if you aren't a coder (and I am not), there are still multiple ways to contribute to a hackathon team and help differentiate your team based on your strengths and weaknesses.

To learn more about the XPC Hackathon and read the entire breakdown of the winners and event, see here.